[COVER STORY]
Right Place , Right Time
by Eric Johnson
Professional couples in a metropolitan area lead busy lives that typically demand reasonable commutes, as many conveniences as possible, and quality downtime that gives pause to all but the most urgent emails.
Meeting these demands can be challenging. It’s not easy, for example, to find a great home in the right place and at the right time.
Matt and Elizabeth Detar recently met that challenge by settling down in a newly built town home in a community brimming with other professional couples. He calls it “a great place to live.” She calls it “perfect.”
They’re speaking, of course, about Chantilly.
Big smiles for their engagement portrait.
Matt and Elizabeth’s golden retriever Archie peeks around the corner.
Archie flashes a friendly grin.
Matt and Elizabeth on the snowy slopes at Telluride.
They work in different arenas but share a commitment to a lifestyle that includes plenty of after-hours catching up on projects, nonstop emails, and unexpected phone calls.
They also share an appreciation for Chantilly’s location: Elizabeth’s daily commute is just 10 minutes while Matt’s drive is no more than 20 minutes each way, always going against the general flow of traffic. Matt calls it “reverse commuting” and said he’s happy that “I don’t have to fight (Interstate) 66.” Elizabeth added that for each of their professions, Chantilly “really is the perfect location.”
Elizabeth, whose maiden name is Sharples, grew up in Round Hill. She studied business administration at the University of Mississippi and spent a few years after graduation in Colorado before moving back to Northern Virginia.
Dulles is the takeoff point for their wintertime skiing trips to the Telluride resort in Colorado. An airplane ride to the Dominican Republic is on the horizon, too. For shorter trips, Matt and Elizabeth never hesitate to get out of town for weekends with friends. And about twice a year, they enjoy visiting Matt’s parents in South Carolina, who raised a family in Loudoun County before retiring to a beach community on Pawleys Island. Elizabeth’s parents live nearby in The Plains, while a sister is in Frederick, Maryland, and a brother lives in Bluemont.
Hockey games starring their beloved Washington Capitals also get them out the door. They have season tickets to the team’s games, and Matt is an enthusiastic collector of Caps memorabilia. His collection includes souvenir hockey sticks, signed and framed player jerseys, a replica of the Stanley Cup, and a rare pair of gloves once worn by Caps superstar Alexander Ovechkin.
“Sports has always been a big part of my life” and today hockey is “something we love to do together,” Matt explained, adding that sports collecting was a dimension of his personality that Elizabeth knew well when she said “I do” at their wedding in Leesburg in May 2022.
Matt said his dear wife “is very much a minimalist and I am a collector. She reins in my collecting so that it doesn’t get out of hand… She puts up with my craziness.”
Another shared activity is volunteering for the community. Matt provides dental care to financially needy patients from the area through a group called Hope for Tomorrow. Elizabeth has contributed to the community for about a decade as a volunteer running coach for girls in third through eighth grades under the nonprofit group Girls on the Run.
A runner herself, Elizabeth not only jogs with her husband but, through Girls on the Run, helps youngsters work up to participating in 5k events. “I definitely stand behind the cause,” she said. “And it’s a nice release for me. It’s fun and a good stress reliever.”
Work-wise, Matt and Elizabeth follow separate callings. Matt and a professional partner have a dentistry practice that focuses on special procedures including root canals. The partners divide their time between an office in Manassas and another in Leesburg. Meanwhile, Elizabeth works as a human resources manager for a mortgage company based in Fairfax Corner.
Matt’s family line is traceable from the East Coast back several hundred years to the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, which straddles the French border with Germany.
Now, another kind of history is being made for Matt and Elizabeth in a community that embraces professionals with active lifestyles. These are hardworking, community-caring people with pets, passions, and places to go. Having settled in Chantilly, Matt and Elizabeth have found that, like so many of their neighbors, they really are in the right place at the right time.