architecture design: National Park Seminary tour

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending a fascinating historic housetour at National Park Seminary with my friend Maxine who I have mentioned a few times before. She's lucky enough to live in this unique neighborhood and invited me to join her!

The seminary, located at the northern tip of Rock Creek Park outside of Silver Spring, has a long history, many uses and owners, and now has been redeveloped as a condominium and townhouse community (more on that later).

The site started as an estate but in the 1880s a resort was built here, high in the hills above Washington DC, so that people could escape the heat of the city. You can see the original inn below.

The resort was a failure due to difficulty in reaching the site and an economic recession at the time.

It was soon bought by a couple in the 1890s who started an exclusive girl's school on the site which remained for many years until being requisitioned by the army as auxiliary hospital space. These odd structures you see here were club houses and out-buildings which, similar to the Columbian Exposition in 1893 were meant to educate the girls on different cultures; expose them to things they hadn't seen before. Pretty cool, huh?

They are all now private houses or still for sale by the developer who has given new life to the Seminary.

There has been a lot of negative feedback, many believing the developers have disregarded the detailing and history of the building. They claim the developer turned the main building into a generic suburban condominimum. Given the high cost of renovations, I forgive them this offense as the exterior restoration has been impeccable. Many of the interior details have been retained, as you will see later in this post. This is a HUGE undertaking and I applaud their efforts -certainly better than wrack and ruin, no?

You can see the disrepair the campus had fallen into above in some of the un-renovated parts of the property (which are still available for sale); Serious, gross neglect on the part of the army.

Above you can see how the developers funded much of this work by turning some of the open land into townhouses detailed similarly to many of the more unique buildings.

My friend Maxine lives in one of these new townhouses which are nicely finished. In this group above, you can see how they copied details from existing buildings (the dilapidated buildings in the center).

The main building, as I said earlier, is an enormous structure added onto over the years. The main inn remains the nucleus which the girl's school extended somewhat randomly in Victorian fashion. Above you can see the grand ballroom to the left which was surrounded by dorm rooms.

On the opposite side of the inn were mechanical and service spaces connected to the main building with this enclosed bridge.

Greek temples adjacent to French chateaus next to Tudor revival - it's quirky and fabulous.

Can you imagine something like this being built today?

To the left of the drive here is the "American Cottage" which a young family is currently renovating to suit their needs.

The stone work throughout is really nicely detailed and restored; Original sculptures dot the grounds.

The Grecian temple you see behind the main building is attached in rambling fashion (of course) and now houses 2 apartments that I would die to see!

Near the mechanical spaces is this 'colonial house' below which is available. In better shape than some of the abandoned buildings you can see it still needs a thorough renovation! What a fun project this would be.

This stairhall below is on the first floor just off the porch, the center fan topped french doors is a coved living room following the shape of the transom. On the opposite side is a large kitchen and the main entrance. Still quite a bit of the original building left to save.

The proceeds of the tour were to fund rehabilitation of the statuary.

This lead lion is hollow (who painted these yellow??).

This Indian is in far better shape.

This bronze sculpture is really lovely.

The aloha building (more apartments) has semi-caryatids surrounding the porch.

While much of the interior doesn't follow the original plans, details such as staircases, paneling, and fireplaces have been saved (even if they sometimes make no sense in the new layout).

This carved stone plaque below was in the 'president's mansion' entryway in an enormous inglenook. The house is now split into 12 generously sized apartments!