Anyone driving between Georgia Avenue and Connecticut Avenue near Silver Spring, MD is likely to encounter a strange sight. On one side of Linden Avenue, you see an ordinary town house complex:
On the other side of the street, however, you see this:
I’ve long wanted to explore this property, known as National Park Seminary. Once a month, the Save Our Seminary organization offers a tour, so my mom and I went. Here’s what we learned:
This lodge first opened as a resort for folks to escape Washington, DC in the late 1880s. In 1894, a couple brought the property to open a finishing school for young women. They named it “National Park Seminary.” After serious restoration in the 2000s, the building now contains apartments and condos.The best buildings on the property are the old sorority houses. Sororities anchored the social life at National Park Seminary. For the 400 students, there were at least eight sororities.Many of the sorority houses, which were used only for entertaining, showcase architectural designs from around the world. This is the Dutch windmill building.Here’s the pagoda…the Swiss chalet…and the Spanish mission.These two sorority houses have been lost to the forest glen.Bridges originally connected the seminary to a B&O railroad station. This statue stands close to where a bridge used to cross the glen. The girls affectionately called it “Oh, I’ve missed the train!”The second director of the seminary, Dr. Ament, foisted his amateurish architectural ambitions onto the campus. He didn’t want any of the girls at his elite institution (the tuition is said to have cost more than Harvard’s) to ever get wet, so he built lots of covered walkways. Though the hodgepodge looks ridiculous, I have to applaud Dr. Ament for his installation of the caryatids (see below).
After the stock market crash in 1929, the school lost most of its students and never recovered. The Army took over the property during WWII and used it as an extension to the Walter Reed Army Hospital. About 10 years ago, the Army decided it no longer needed the property. More recently, developers have done an incredible job restoring and re-purposing the buildings. Most of the sorority houses are still waiting for buyers, but the old lodge and the buildings connected to it, like the chapel and the president’s house, now contain apartments and condos. Meanwhile, new townhouses have sprung up in and around the campus. As interesting as the history of this property is, I’m most impressed by how creatively the developers gave the buildings new life while still preserving their style and key features.
Lanahj 