Private Jet to Mclean

McLean, Virginia, is a study in contrasts. Visitors can shop till they drop, enjoy the beauty of the Great Falls or dream about what it would be like to work as a spy while standing at the gates of the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency. And, all this is just 10 miles west of the nation’s capital. Located off the Capital Beltway (I-495), McLean, one of the richest towns in the United States, is full of luxury homes and is the current or former residence of many famous political figures, including former Vice-President Dick Cheney; former Secretary of State, General Colin Powell; Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Among the companies based in McLean are Capital One, Mars candy company, Freddie Mac, Hilton hotels and Gannett media.

The unincorporated town is named after John Roll McLean (1848-1916), the former publisher and owner of The Washington Post and the Cincinnati Enquirer, which were started by his father, Washington McLean. In 1906, McLean – with the financial backing of French aristocrat Jean-Pierre Guenard and American industrialist and politician Stephen Benton Elkins -- built the electrified Great Falls and Old Dominion Railway that connected the area to Washington, D.C.

The community, which lies in the Piedmont upland on the west bank of the Potomac River, is truly a place of nature’s beauty. Many small streams and creeks flow into the river, including Pimmit Run and Scott’s Run, the location of Scott’s Run Nature Preserve which goes over a dramatic waterfall as it hits the river. The park is filled with hiking trails, many over rocky cliffs on the bluffs that overlook the river.

The 800-acre Great Falls Park where the Potomac River builds up speed and tumbles over jagged rocks as it heads toward Mather Gorge is also located in McLean. A segment of the Potomac Heritage Trail crosses through the park. The CIA headquarters, located in the part of McLean called Langley, is cool to see but seeing it from the gate is about as far as you will get – unless you have the credentials to have made special arrangements to tour it. Down the street from the CIA is the U.S. Department of

Transportation's Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center. McLean has a population of about 50,000 with a median annual household income of $284,000. The median home value is just under $1 million.