The Pastel Dream Of the Developer

Thelma Edwards Made a Little Pink House Her Building Block for Friendship Heights

The woman who built Friendship Heights: Millionaire developer Thelma "Tim" Edwards and her Rolls-Royce outside her Little Pink House on Willard Avenue. (By Andrea Bruce -- The Washington Post)

Once upon a time, there was a little house way out in the country.

Everyone called it the Little Pink House. It was bordered by two streams, and just across the dirt lane of Willard Avenue sat a dairy farm. Not far to the south, the trolley from downtown Washington made its last stop at Friendship Heights, which in the 1940s was nothing more than a filling station and a Howard Johnson's at the intersection of Western and Wisconsin avenues on the District line.

Today, the Little Pink House still stands, bordered by two soaring apartment buildings. Across Willard -- now a traffic-clogged four-lane road -- squats Geico's massive office complex. The Metro long ago replaced the trolley. Along Wisconsin, the nearly completed Chevy Chase Center boasts the region's most opulent shopping palazzo, home to the glittering facades of boutiques such as Christian Dior, Ralph Lauren, Barneys Co-op, Louis Vuitton and Jimmy Choo.

People sometimes take notice of the Little Pink House, but few know why it still stands, or who its owner is, and how she ranks among the most important developers in the history of Washington.

There she is now: a little old lady watering her roses this particular morning; or maybe, later in the day, waxing the grill of her white Rolls-Royce convertible.

Her name is Thelma Edwards, but everyone calls her Tim. She is 89 years old. She has lived in Friendship Heights for nearly 60 years. And she is not so little, really, when you see her up close. A thin woman, 5 feet 8, with a dancer's stiff posture, she ties her shirts around her waist, matches coral lipstick to her metallic nails and prances around the house in slip-on mesh sneakers.

Known in the soaring 1960s as Friendship Heights' "unofficial mayor," she was the only woman in the multimillionaire developers' club of the day, a shrewd businesswoman who flew a Piper Cub to scout land for Lord & Taylor, argued for a Metrorail stop at Friendship Heights and brokered deals for Geico's headquarters and the very high-rises that now tower above her cozy 1,400-square-foot cottage.

"Everyone thinks it's just a sweet old house," Edwards says sharply, tapping a nail on the kitchen's black granite countertop, "but this one is the key to assembling the block." In development terms, "assembling" means gathering together neighboring lots to create a large enough base for commercial property. But Edwards, who bought the cottage 40 years ago, is holding out. She doesn't need the money. This place, she says, is her sanctuary. The Little Pink House is the developer's last bastion against development.

Entering 4607 Willard Ave. feels like stepping into a Florida beach house. Its snow-white wall-to-wall carpet retains the lush stripes of a recent vacuuming. Terra cotta angels preen atop a bamboo end table. On the table sits a hardcover copy of a children's classic: Virginia Lee Burton's picture book "The Little House," subtitled on its cover, "Her-Story."

That story, as you may remember, is a parable of urban development. A strong and well-built pink house starts out life in the country, where she observes the passing of time: "the trucks and automobiles going back and forth to the city . . . Everyone and everything moved much faster now than before." She ends up surrounded by a city, with all of its vexations, grime and noise. Generations later, the house is finally moved to a new place back in the country.

Edwards bought the book, first published in 1942, because she has always enjoyed reading it to her nine grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

On the first page, the man who built the house vows: