A Road's Coming Through

Still, residents have seen enough to make them plenty worried. While no one has been officially notified of whose homes would stay and whose would go, residents have seen the detailed plans, with the letter "R" linked to their homes. The "R" stands for "displaced residence."

Those whose homes would be spared said they're wondering whether that's actually good news. They are contemplating life next to a highway and whether their homes are now nearly impossible to sell without huge losses.

"See that field there?" said Dorothy Kent, 77, as she pointed out the front window where she sits much of the day, reading or watching television from a soft rocking chair. The highway "would go right there, and I'll just be sitting here listening to it." The "field" is actually a neighbor's yard across the street. That house would go. While Kent would be able to stay in her home, the proposed highway would cut her off from a nearby park and two shopping centers, including a post office and pharmacy, to which she enjoys walking.

"If I have to move, where would I go?" said Kent, a retired secretary who raised four children in the home that her late husband, Bill, helped to build. "If I don't move, am I going to live the rest of my life next to a six-lane highway that I never planned on?"

Like Kent, some Cashell Estates residents have lived there almost 50 years. All say they were drawn to the peaceful, country feel of a community that is a short drive to a Metro station and Rockville Pike's stores and restaurants. Unlike many newer homes in Montgomery, which seem to be built from lot line to lot line, homes in Cashell Estates are more modest, many of them ranch-style. The trade-off: They are surrounded by acres and acres of grassland and woods -- the lots are all one to five acres -- that residents fill with gardens, swings and decks.

The neighborhood has about 25 homes, mostly along two roads. Neighbors know each other well enough that an unfamiliar vehicle passing through draws attention.

Residents say they have known for almost 50 years -- as long as an intercounty connector has appeared on Montgomery planning documents -- that a highway might one day run near their homes. The county's master plan had always called for the highway to go about a half-mile to the southwest, a distance that many said they could have lived with.

But as the state's latest highway study took shape, Cashell Estates residents said, they began to get a bad feeling. First, they saw lines on a map showing various routes the state was considering. For the first time, they said, one of the lines went through their neighborhood. As the state's public maps grew more detailed, they said, the picture became even clearer. In January, residents said, they saw the "R" symbols showing which of their homes would be cleared.

When Ehrlich announced the state's preferred route for a connector last month, the path he touted as being in Montgomery's master plan actually included a slight deviation near Redland Road. The state's draft environmental impact study referred to it simply as "Rock Creek Option C." To the residents of Cashell Estates, that meant the highway would run through some of their homes.

"The thing that upsets us is that originally it was supposed to go in the park," said Bruce Kosian, 72, whose home of 46 years would be condemned for the state's preferred route. "It wasn't supposed to go up here."

"They changed some of [the route] to appease the Environmental Protection Agency," said his wife, Dorothy Kosian, 72.

Pedersen said state officials have considered Option C since the mid-1990s. He said they "acquiesced" to federal environmental officials' concerns about the impact that the initial master plan alignment near Cashell Estates would have had on Rock Creek. Sending the highway through that area would affect much more parkland and one of the creek's tributaries, Pedersen said.

The U.S. Department of the Interior and the EPA "made very strong statements in terms of their concern" with a route that would have more environmental impacts, Pedersen said.

The master plan alignment would have required taking three homes in or near Cashell Estates. The chosen route would take 17.

For now, Cashell Estates residents are left to wonder: Will their house definitely go? If so, when? And what will the state consider "just compensation"? Most important, many say, they wonder where they would go. In a county where townhouses regularly sell for $500,000, where would they be able to afford, or even find, a single-family home surrounded by so much open land?

Ben and Christy Graybeal said they are upset that the state chose a route different from the one they researched before buying the 60-year-old home that they have spent six years painstakingly refurbishing. The work -- stripping paint and wallpaper, tearing down walls, replacing windows, putting in tile and painting -- took up every weekend and many late weeknights. They estimate that the kitchen addition that Ben Graybeal finished in March, complete with a mudroom and laundry room designed exactly as he and his wife wanted them, would be just about in the center line of an intercounty connector.

For now, the Graybeals are holding off on their original plans to build a deck, renovate the basement and add a garage. Instead, they are doing only small jobs to make sure their house is in top shape for the real estate appraiser who would decide how much their property is worth for compensation.

"We always thought that maybe eventually we'd move, but someone would be enjoying our labor," said Christy Graybeal, 29, a University of Maryland graduate student. "To have it all bulldozed is very depressing."