When Kim Jacobs was preparing to get married last month for thesecond time, she decided it was time to indulge herself with a trulygrand engagement ring.
She walked out of Mervis Diamond Importers at Tysons Corner with ashimmering ring -- a 1.27-carat center stone flanked by smallerdiamonds -- plus a diamond necklace for her wedding day.
'I wanted to get exactly what I wanted,' said Jacobs, the 40-year-old co-owner of a Springfield office furniture store. 'I feel goodabout my economic position. Business is good overall.'
A lot of people seem to have that frame of mind nowadays inFairfax County, which ranked as the wealthiest of more than 3,000U.S. jurisdictions in a recent survey.
Flush with the financial fallout from Northern Virginia'stechnology boom, Fairfax County has widened its economic lead overMontgomery County. Much of the county's newest wealth, moreover, isin the hands of young Internet millionaires eager to enjoy the fruitsof almost overnight stock windfalls.
'Fairfax is just white hot,' said diamond importer Ronnie Mervis,whose voice is heard on countless radio ads for the firm he and twobrothers own. 'There's so much growth, go, go, go.'
Last year, the firm moved its headquarters from Rockville to asmall site at Tysons just outside the Capital Beltway. Mervis saidit was a calculated assessment of where the firm's future sales werelikely to be heaviest.
'We compared trends and buying habits, available consumers,' hesaid. 'Any transaction is far less tortuous in Fairfax. {InMontgomery}, they turn over every penny and look at it beforespending it. People in Fairfax earn more and don't worry aboutspending it. They say, `I like it, I want it, I'll buy it.' '
Statistics compiled by Claritas Inc., an Arlington-based consumermarketing-information firm, show that Fairfax's median householdincome has reached $87,569, the highest in the nation of the morethan 3,000 jurisdictions surveyed. It is a lofty perch that Fairfaxhas held for the past decade, according to census numbers.
In 1990, median household income in Fairfax was $5,195 more thanin Montgomery County, long the preeminent symbol of wealth in theWashington area. Now that spread has more than doubled, to $12,671.Median income means that half of the households in each county havemore income and half have less.
Fairfax is 'in some very fast company,' said Ken Hodges, aClaritas demographer, 'and by some measures it goes right to the top.It has a large component of affluent households, not many that arereal low and not enough to drag down the median.'
Consider:
Almost 19 percent of Fairfax households have more than $150,000 inannual income, sixth highest in the country. That's up from 4.5percent and a 20th place ranking a decade ago. Fairfax trails suchplaces as Fairfield County, Conn.; Somerset County, N.J.; andWestchester County, N.Y. Montgomery County comes in 12th, with 16percent of its households having $150,000 or more in income.
About one of every eight Fairfax households has accumulated a networth of more than $500,000, according to Claritas, which places itfourth nationally, behind Nassau County, N.Y., and Morris andSomerset counties in New Jersey. Montgomery is seventh.
With the growing income has come a competitive impatience for thetrappings and toys of wealth among many of Fairfax County's best-offresidents.
Keith Ryland, a 35-year-old senior director for one of FairfaxCounty's burgeoning technology firms, wasn't about to lose out on thehome site of his dreams -- nearly an acre of land in upscale GreatFalls, with lots of trees. The lot and the house planned for itwould cost him $720,000.
But Toll Brothers Inc., which owned the lot and would build thehome, had decided to sell the secluded property to whoever was firstin line at the site at the stroke of 11 a.m. one Saturday thissummer.
Ryland camped out on the site till midnight, hired the son of oneof his real estate agents to sit with the property through the nightand came back himself at 6 a.m.
'I don't like dealing in uncertainties,' Ryland said.
Good thing he did, too, because a competing bidder showed up at 5a.m. But, with a $50,000 down payment, Ryland got his home site.
'It's just amazing the number of young people that can affordthese $400,000-and-up prices,' said real estate agent Nancy Danielsof the Prudential Carruthers brokerage, who helped Ryland secure hishouse deal. 'People in their thirties with little kids.'
To be sure, while Fairfax has become home to many haves, there arethousands who do not have much: A total of 18 percent of the county's156,000 public school students are eligible under federal guidelinesthis fall for free or reduced-price meals. To qualify, a family offour must have an annual household income of less than $30,895.
'Any county of this size takes a lot of services to keep itgoing,' said Sharon Kelso, executive director of United CommunityMinistries, a support group for Fairfax's poor. Many of theseservice providers cannot afford to live in the county, she said.
Still, it is the upscale side of life that has become as much asymbol of Fairfax as the Washington Monument is of the District.
Stephen S. Fuller, a George Mason University professor, estimatedthat last year the Fairfax economy -- the value of the goods andservices produced there -- totaled more than $45.8 billion. That'slarger than the economies of 16 states.
Good incomes have afforded John Gerndt, 39, who works for adefense contractor, and Karen, 35, his wife of three months who worksas a hospital wellness coordinator, some pleasurable moments on thegolf course. Together, he said, they have a joint income of$120,000, a bit above what Fuller said is the Fairfax averagehousehold income of $115,430.
Gerndt said he and his wife play golf once or twice a month at thepublic Pleasant Valley Golf Club in western Fairfax, a short distancefrom the $300,000 house they bought in the Virginia Run development.
'You pay $170 to play and throw in a little food and you'relooking at a $200 day,' he said. 'But I don't mind paying forquality. Some of the older courses are not as well kept.'
Fairfax car buyers don't mind paying for quality, either.
Saeed Khamenian, a top salesman at the Rosenthal Infinitidealership at Tysons Corner, thinks he knows why new customers areshowing up to look at cars that often cost $30,000 to $40,000.
'These cars are wants, not needs,' he said. 'I know it's a goodeconomy when I see people looking for their wants rather than theirneeds.'
One software engineer for America Online Inc. who was there at thefounding of the computer giant in the 1980s said he didn't quite hita million dollars in his thirties, but didn't miss by much. He saidhe collected numerous stock options over the past few years andrealized he was a millionaire a month after his 40th birthday.
Now the man, who declined to be identified in order to protect hisfamily's privacy, said he is worth more than $10 million, even aftergiving away $2 million or so to charities and relatives.
And, while the man recently spent a week-long vacation helping hisMethodist church group build a house for a poor family in Appalachia,his wealth has changed some things.
'When I bought a car {a 1996 Dodge Stratus}, I didn't take out afour-year loan, I wrote a check,' he said.
Now, he and his wife have bought a wooded 13-acre home site nearthe 12th fairway at the Westfields Golf Club near Clifton for$450,000 and are starting to build a $1 million, 8,000-square-foothouse.
'It will be a very smart home,' he said. 'If a function can becomputerized, it will be.'
