| Simon
Statue Returns to Lake Anne |
By Erick Soricelli
Observer Staff Writer |
| Reston founder Robert E. Simon Jr. is a resident
of Lake Anne, but he's been away for a little while. A bronze
statue created in his likeness recently returned to a bench
overlooking the plaza after being stolen in October. |
| The statue was taken from the bench in the early morning
hours of Oct. 23, and was found at dawn the same morning in
a canal resting against a tree in the nearby Waterview Cluster
area. It was removed from the canal by Reston Association
and turned over to the Reston Historic Trust, the statue's
owners. |
| Vicky Wingert, president of the Reston Historic Trust, said
the attachment that holds the statue to the bench was repaired,
and "the rest of the statue was okay." |
| Wingert said the statue is now welded to a metal plate.
Before it was taken, the statue had been bolted to the bench.
"You can't just unbolt it," she said. "We felt that this could
make it really secure. We pretty much depended on the artist
to come up with a solution." |
| Wingert also said no other places were considered for a
redisplay of the statue, describing the bench as a "prime
location in the center of Lake Anne" that "seemed like an
appropriate spot." |
| Former Reston resident and current Bethesda, Md. resident
Zachary Oxman created the statue, which was unveiled at Founders'
Day, an event held Apr. 17, 2004, to commemorate Reston's
40th anniversary. |
| Oxman said he did not charge any money for the repairs,
which he felt was his way of giving back to the community. |
| The metal plate is located underneath the bench with several
bolts going through it. "This, I thought, would be the most
secure thing," he said. |
| "We haven't found the guilty party on that yet," said Fairfax
County police public information officer Mary Mulrenan Dec.
14, who also said there were no leads in the case. |
| "I think it's a nice addition for Lake Anne," said Kurt
Pronske, who serves on the Reston Historic Trust Board of
Directors and lives in nearby Waterford Square. "How many
communities do we know that have their founding fathers still
living?" |
| Simon was photographed next to the statue for the front
cover of the 2004 Reston phone directory, "A Place Called
Reston." |
| "I just think that's pretty neat," Pronske said. |
