Awards recognize beautification efforts

Mason Supervisor Penny Gross (left) presents a beautification award to Alex Pathammavong and PJ Tierno of Fairfax County Department of Public Works and Environmental Services. On the right is Kimberly Wilkins, a member of the Bailey's Crossroads Seven Corners Revitalization Corporation.

The Bailey’s Crossroads Seven Corners Revitalization Corporation presented two beautification awards at its Dec. 12 meeting.

One award went to the Everly Funeral Home, at 6161 Leesburg Pike, Seven Corners, for “aesthetically pleasing and attractively maintained landscape features” that enhance the image of the Bailey’s Crossroads, Culmore, and Seven Corners area. Everly Managing Partner Daniel Simons accepted the award on behalf of the company.

Mason Supervisor Penny Gross, Daniel Simons of Everly Funeral Home, and BC7RC board member Kimberly Wilkins.

The other beautification award was presented to PJ Tierno, a project manager at the Fairfax County Department of Public Works and Environmental Services, and Alex Pathammavong, a contract analyst at DPWES.

That award recognizes DPWES and BrightView Landscapes LLC for enhancing the cloverleaf at the intersection of Leesburg Pike and Columbia Pike in Bailey’s Crossroads “with well-groomed and healthy landscaping in addition to the recently painted windmill.”

The Everly Funeral Home's landscaping looks nice even in December.

The windmill was put up by Irvin and Amanda Payne who lived in a stone house in that spot and used the windmill to pump water for Amanda’s garden, which had an estimated 20,000 tulips, according to a story by John Kelly published in the Washington Post March 28, 2010.

When the state of Virginia built the cloverleaf in 1973, Amanda Payne had her house jacked up and moved 200 feet back, the article states. The garden was paved over, and as the intersection was expanded, the house was demolished. In 1990, the Payne family donated the windmill to Fairfax County.