Buy Bricks From Chestnut Lodge

Our friends at Peerless Rockville are selling bricks from Chestnut Lodge for $20 each to benefit the Eileen McGuckian Preservation Fund. The Fund will be used “for future rescue, restoration, and advocacy of historic sites.”

Chestnut Lodge was an internationally-known sanitarium and Victorian resort hotel before it burned on on June 7, 2009. Any mention of the building brings stories. I was surprised by how many people had a connection to its past. Now everyone can have a momento.

If you would like to order one or more bricks, fill out and return this form by September 12, 2009. Bricks will be delievered between 9/15-9/30.

Burbank’s Is No More

Yesterday, I stopped by Burbanks to see if the building had been demolished. On Friday, City Council candidate Max van Balgooy had alerted us (using Twitter) that a demolition permit had been issued. Sure enough, the building was gone and construction trucks were flattening the lot.

According to City staff in April 2008, property met Rockville’s criteria for a local historic district. Built in 1890, the building was the oldest commercial structure still in its original location in downtown Rockville.

As Peerless Rockville describes, the building was constructed by Thomas Dawson, a prominent businessman who had a mercantile store and rented to many businesses. The 1 1/2-story structure with a sloped roof was definitely a reminder of days gone by. In the 1960’s, Perry and Eleanor Burbank opened a luncheonette and when Hence and Laura Maynard took over in 1974, they kept the name.

In February 0f 2003, the owner of the consignment shop at 18 West Montgomery Avenue, Vanessa Yvette Johnson Sosin, was murdered on a Saturday afternoon.  The building was set on fire to cover up the crime, which has never been solved. The building was purchased by 18 West Montgomery Avenue LLC in 2004 and has been vacant.

As I wrote, the City tried to buy it as part of the new police station complex but the owner wanted $1.3 million.

So this is what a $1.3 million lot looks like:

I’m interested to find out what will become of the land.

Find the Historical Society Banners

Phil Andrews at the Press Conference. Photo from MCHS.

On July 1, 2009 the Montgomery County Historical Society started placing large colorful banners throughout Montgomery County. Have you seen one?

Through a grant from The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) the Montgomery Connections project has been designed to grab your attention and teach local history as it relates to your daily life. This project combines striking historical images on the banners with public service advertisements, cell phone downloads and website materials. All of the materials are in English, Spanish and Chinese.

In a Montgomery County Historical Society press release, Beth Hickey, Director of Project Development and Outreach, explains:

While this is a project of the Montgomery County Historical Society, it could not have come to completion without the amazing support we experienced from the Chinese and Spanish speaking communities, as well as the Montgomery County arts community. During our early project testing we held a series of focus groups and were encouraged by the response from the Hispanic participants. They felt the project would provide opportunities to talk to their own children about their experiences in their home countries during times of hardship. And I was overwhelmed by the support from the Chinese community and their excitement about the fact that we were reaching and including them in a project about local history. This really has been an amazing experience and has fostered new relationships between the historical society and other local cultural groups… relationships that I hope only continue to grow.

I was pleased to participate in one of the focus groups and give my feedback on the images and messages. The thought-provoking reactions reported from other focus groups helped me connect current issues with our history. The banners will do the same.

The first round of themes include:

• Yarrow Mamout, and his story as a Beall family slave
• Blanche Corwin, a home demonstration agent who founded the Bethesda Woman’s Farm Market during the Great Depression
• Dora and John Higgins and the Rockville Civil War raid
• Fred Van Hoesen, an agricultural agent and his story of assisting farmers in the county

For the next two years the banners will be moving around our busiest public spaces. Keep an eye out and dial your cellphone!

Chestnut Lodge Burns and Collapses

According to local news outlets, a  barking dog alerted a neighbor to the blaze at the Chestnut Lodge around 3 AM. Firefighters arrived on the scene but only the shell of this 19th century gem remains. No one was injured.

Around 9:45 this morning, onlookers told me the owner was at the site  and he was concerned people would think the fire was deliberately set.  Also, he said the building did not have electricity. 

Originally built as the Woodlawn Hotel in the 1800’s, the building was used as a psychiatric hospital for 75 years before closing in 2001 due to financial difficulty. In May 2004, the Mayor and Council adopted guidelines for the development of the property which would preserve the historical and architectural features. Morton H. Levine’s plan to build 36 Victorian-style homes on the property and convert the hotel into seven luxury condominiums was approved in 2006. Although some homes have been built,  renovations to the building had not started.

What’s the Pump House?

Since I wrote about the Open Mic at the Pump House, many people have been asking about the building. Here’s an excerpt from my Rockville University project which describes a part of East Rockville’s history including the Pumphouse.

Property around the railroad tracks developed when the B&O Railroad reached Rockville in 1873, so homes in East Rockville date back to the late 1800’s. Last May, Peerless Rockville did its first tour of the historic homes in this neighborhood, featuring Victorian Cottages, American Foursquares, and beautiful gardens.

When the railroad reached Rockville, developers quickly bought up the farmland bordering it to the east in order to subdivide into residential lots. One developer was William Reading who purchased 30 acres from Dr. E. E. Stonestreet in 1884. This is Rockville Park. Charles Maddox who designed the Old Courthouse bought a big piece, built his own house, and lived in East Rockville. As in the West End of Rockville, many people built the houses for summer use away from Washington and the diseases associated with this swampland. By 1900, Rockville began to resemble a suburb of Washington, DC. People could then easily reach Washington DC for work.

The main historic site is the Pump House at 401 South Horners Lane. A plaque on the building dates it to 1879. According to the City of Rockville Community Planning Division, The Rockville Electric Light and Water Works was built under the leadership of Mayor Joseph Reading and it generated electricity for public street lights as well as private homes.

The property became the site of the first municipal water supply. Councilmember Phyllis Marcuccio gave me a tour and explained that there was a typhoid outbreak in 1913. Someone was visiting the house at 308 Baltimore Avenue and when using the outhouse, spread his typhoid into the water supply below and it spread to everyone’s wells. The U.S. Public Health Department designed this solution to protect the City’s water supply and laid pipes to create a water and sanitation system. This was replicated all over the country. A water holding tank and elevated water tank were on the site until just recently and the pumps were in the building until just a few years ago.

The Pump House is an anchor for the community and is now a recreation center. Currently it is the home of The Finest! Dance Troup. In the past, it was the first location for senior activities. Ruth Hanessian’s mother, Estelle Berberian, advocated for a senior meeting place and the Pump House was used before the current Senior Center was built.

In 1936, a school bus and train collided at the Baltimore Road crossing. Fourteen children and adults died and the crossing was closed permanently. This cut the neighborhood off from points west. The B&O built a small one-lane wooden bridge (no more than 5,000 pounds). When a cement truck from Lincoln Park crossed with a full load, it collapsed and was replaced by a pedestrian bridge. When the Metro was built, Park Road was paved and put through the tunnel allowing more access to the community.

In 1981 as the commuter line was being built, Metro authorities kept referring to all the neighborhoods east of the railroad line as “Croydon Park”. This wasn’t appropriate because the area was made up of ten subdivisions. When people didn’t show up for public meetings, Phyllis Marcuccio worked to have the area referred to as “East Rockville” so that people would know they were to be included. The sign installed by the City welcomes people on the corner by the metro.

The East Rockville Civic Association was then chartered with representatives from the following neighborhoods: Croydon Park including England’s 2nd Division; Maryvale; Burgundy including Burgundy Hills, Burgundy Village, Harriet Park, and Brown’s Addition; Rockville Park including Janeta and Rockdale; and Burgundy/Red Gate including Burgundy Knolls and Red Gate Apartments.

East Rockville includes small brick homes, split foyers, ranch houses, and Victorians. The neighborhood is residential, close to the Metro, and perfect as an affordable area with an easy commute to Washington. The same attractive features for which it was originally built.

Photo from the City of Rockville website.

POTD: THE Courthouse

A final snap from the 1920’s . . . THE court house! Courtesy Peerless Rockville Historic Preservation, Ltd.

POTD: Urban Renewal

More from Peerless Rockville Historic Preservation, Ltd. This photo is of the Court House area. Everything new is old again!

POTD: Obsolescence

We’re trying something slightly different for a few days. Thanks to a suggestion of Rockville Central friend Eric Jensen, we’ve got a few photos from Peerless Rockville Historic Preservation, Ltd.’s archives.

This one is an ad that ran in Cities magazine in 1963. I am not sure I would be advertising “obsolescence,” even in the context of eradicating it! But times were different then.

Pink Bank Charrette Creates Surprising Results

The reality is that the Pink Bank is slated to be torn down. Site approval has been given to build a mix of retail, office, and 290-residential units across from Snowden Funeral Home. The owners have received their first one-year extension to build and could request a second.

During the absolutely beautiful weather last weekend, students from the University of Maryland School of Architecture holed up in the Rockville Library learning about Rockville and developing some very intriguing alternatives to demolishing the Pink Bank during a Design Charrette, co-sponsored by Peerless Rockville. The first thing they noticed is that the façade of the Town Center development has created a wall along North Washington Street which separates Town Center from the neighborhood. Keeping the Pink Bank on Beall Avenue would create an inviting entranceway to Town Center.

In fact they envision the Pink Bank as an exciting and engaging public space, not to replace or compete with Town Square, but part of a series of public spaces to draw people to the area. All of the structures under the Bank on both sides of the center elevator shaft could be removed to create a big, open public space with exterior walkways. The Farmer’s Market could be held, rain or shine, under this cover.

Since the students learned that Rockville has supporters intent on creating a science center, the students embraced this idea. The square footage needed for the Center would fill about half the space inside the Pink Bank. The Bank could become a showcase for energy efficiency and sustainability by providing a living example of how it works. Water management on the site could include green roofs with vertical plant walls that would take out the toxins and the grey water would be filtered for use in the toilets. A turret could be built with plantings. For a sun screen, terra cotta tubing could be attached to the outside of the building.

Herb Winkler, who was at the Charrette, had some cutting-edge ideas. He thought the water retention system could “feed a fountain or be available for some nifty hydraulics experiments.” He also suggested that “Solar sunscreens could provide shade and energy, with monitors to show what is being captured. An experiment would be to adjust the angle to maximize energy production.” He envisioned a six-story atrium with a cupola provided by the smaller top floor with windows that would provide natural convection cooling as well as provide a great space for a Foucault Pendulum to demonstrate the earth’s rotation.

Using the concept of “adaptive reuse”, buildings can grow and be revised rather than remain the same so saving the Pink Bank doesn’t mean saving it exactly as it is now. The building could be converted to an all-glass facade. Since the rectangular mullions are an important element, a contemporary version of the façade could be reinstalled as a lattice separated from the building. The desire would be to keep the essence but make it more usable and appealing.

The building currently is carved up into very small spaces but by taking down walls there is a fair amount of window glass. The Bank building is 20-feet wide which is “thin” but this allows light to penetrate through to create openness and transparency. This change would make the property more valuable. The duct work could be exposed and light shelves added to the interior to capture and bounce the light. The students suggested different scenarios. In the short term, the owners could keep the building the same and simply take out the interior walls to make it more valuable then work on the exterior over time.

Although it is more difficult to quantify the loss of cultural artifacts, places with rich histories beyond the shiny and new invite more economic activity. Retaining historic artifacts crafts a richer history. Surrounding development could get higher rents because of the historic bank.

Terry Lachin, a historian for Peerless Rockville, lectured about prominent lawyer Vivian Simpson who had her offices in the Pink Bank She was the first woman lawyer in Montgomery County, the first woman president of the Bar Association, and the first woman Secretary of State for Maryland. On top of all this she was a “real good lawyer”, voted one of the 20 best lawyers of the century in Maryland. Preserving the building could serve as a teaching tool about Vivian, and it was suggested she could be memorialized in the public space.

If any of the students pick the Pink Bank as a semester project, they will look at the costs involved to make the changes. They explained that we must look beyond the current expenses for the developer and evaluate the whole picture. The Bank is made out of valuable materials that have already been made and transported. Whether it is completely or partially detached from the new development on the property, it would serve as a transition to the nine-story tall new buildings. The density of the plan at Beall Avenue and North Washington Street would be lowered by keeping the Pink Bank. As it is planned now, the new development would be a barrier instead of a uniter for the community. The Pink Bank could help solve the problem rather than be the problem.

Save the Pink Bank

As we discussed with Peerless Rockville Historian, Terry Lachin, on last week’s Rockville Central Radio Show, a Design Charrette for the “Pink Bank” (also known as the Suburban Trust/Bank of America building located at 255 North Washington Street) is planned for this Friday through Sunday.

Students and faculty from the University of Maryland School of Architecture will create hypothetical uses for this fine example of modern, streamlined 1960’s architecture. The ideas from this creative process could be incorporated into the future development of Town Center Phase II.

Co-sponsored by Peerless Rockville, the Design Charette will be held in the first floor meeting room at the Rockville Library:

Friday, February 6, 10 AM – 5 PM with a special presentation by Terry Lachin on the history of the building and local Rockville history during the 1960’s at 2 PM.

Saturday, February 7, 10 AM – 5 PM with a special community forum to gather opinions from 11:30 AM – 2 PM.

Sunday, February 8, 12 Noon – 5 PM with student presentations of their finished work from 3 PM – 5 PM.

Although approval was given to demolish the Pink Bank and build 290 residential units, the redevelopment has not occurred. The hope is that this process will produce alternatives to tearing down the building. Older buildings can be adapted for new uses instead of taking them to a landfill. Our City’s sustainability goals support preserving buildings and reusing existing architecture.

The three-day Charette, a creative process to envision innovative uses, could result in alternatives such as a museum or other special destination. The Old Post Office in downtown DC, a tourist attraction, houses restaurants and offices. Our own Rockville Post Office on North Washington Street will soon be the police station.

Saving buildings makes a place special. As Ms. Lachin said on the show, the Pink Bank has an established identity that fits very nicely into the surrounding streetscape. Buildings don’t have to match. Being architecturally distinctive and unique, the Pink Bank has an important place in Rockville history. Buildings from different eras define a real city.

Everyone’s invited to participate. Drop in whenever you can. Call Peerless Rockville with questions: 301-762-0096.