Their Different Trails Led to 'a Little Gem'
Park, Pets, Rising Values in Prince George's

By Tony Glaros
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, March 3, 2007

For an avid bicyclist such as Pam Helton, the decision to buy a condominium in Westchester Park's Section I in Prince George's County became much simpler when she discovered four trails that thread through 1,100-acre Greenbelt Park.

It takes her just a minute to get from her door to the busy park's lush woods, which nearly surround her neighborhood. Now she pedals for six-mile workouts shaded by mixed pines and deciduous trees along a paved trail that gently rises and dips.

Depending on the season, Helton can glimpse picnickers, warblers or a red fox.

"The park is in my back yard, with trees no one can chop down," said Helton, 46, who lives with her cocker spaniel, Ty. "I can also hop on my bike and ride out to the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center or the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center without too many traffic jams."

Westchester Park's Section 1 is a late-1960s-vintage development of about 225 townhouse and garden-style condo units. Next to it is the smaller Section II completed last spring. The development also includes the Towers at Westchester Park, two high-rise buildings. One building has condos for sale; the other is exclusively rental units. The upper floors of both structures offer a sweeping view of the Washington Monument and FedEx Field.

Helton bought her two-bedroom unit in 2004 for $165,000. The former owner, she said, replaced the carpeting with "lovely" parquet floors.

"The place is now worth about $225,000. I got in at the beginning of the up market. Had I bought six months earlier, I might have paid $125,000 for it."

When she's not challenging herself aerobically, Helton is the artistic director for the Third Millennium Ensemble, a seven-member group of musicians who focus on works by contemporary composers. She said she feels comfortable tuning up for her upcoming May concert in her dining room. "My neighbors have been great about my practicing at odd hours and rehearsing at more normal hours," said Helton, who holds a doctorate in music performance and is the group's clarinetist.

"Generally, it's pretty quiet here, and people are mostly respectful."

In 2003, when Vickery Brewer moved to Westchester Park, she traded in her nearly one-hour commute from Anne Arundel County for a four-minute ride to her job at the Food and Drug Administration's College Park complex. "I like that [the community] is small and proportional," said Brewer, 40, who paid $130,000 for her two-bedroom condo. "We've got small groups of buildings, and people know each other and look out for each other."

Her $394-a-month condo fee goes toward all utilities, plus her share of the landscaping provided to residents, along with trash and snow removal. "We basically have no out-of-pocket expenses," she said, other than cable TV and Internet connections.

George Pelham has a short commute, too. Pelham, 62, is an academic adviser in the computer science department at the University of Maryland. Westchester Park, he said, "could be described as a little gem, an island in the park. We are still a bargain. I paid $58,000 in '01. They would appraise it now at $205,000."

The original section, he said, is in the midst of a multimillion-dollar renovation, featuring new lampposts, shutters and beefed-up landscaping.

One of the neighborhood's big attractions, he said, is Greenbelt Park. "It is a tremendous asset. A large number of pet owners use the park to walk their dogs. I used to ride my bike through there."

Because there is only one way in and one way out of Westchester Park, Pelham said, crime is limited to an occasional car theft. The area is patrolled by the Prince George's County police; there have been discussions about annexing the neighborhood into either the city of Greenbelt or Berwyn Heights, which would mean receiving police service from their municipal forces.

Later this year, the new home of the Friends Community School will open at Westchester Park. The private Quaker school, which enrolls students from kindergarten through eighth grade, is erecting an environmentally "green" building to replace its present home near downtown College Park, according to the school's Web site. The new structure faces south to draw on solar energy to help provide heat. Straw is being used in the outer walls to improve insulation.

Bundled up one recent day to fend off a cold wind, Beverly Robertson Johnson recalled that moving from her single-family house in Oxon Hill to Westchester Park was bittersweet. But she had to act, believing the neighborhood where she had lived for 27 years was deteriorating. "At 6 in the morning, I saw a strange lady in my yard," she remembered. "It scared the heck out of me. The tires on my car were also slashed."

Johnson, 64, a Treasury department retiree who bought a condo for $224,000, said her new neighbors "are so pleasant. The upkeep is immaculate, and it's convenient to everything."

She also likes having conscientious pet owners around. "I see cats on leashes. I haven't seen one stray. I can't believe it!"

While Westchester Park is close to the Beltway and to a major university, it remains "somewhat secluded," said Sharon McCraney, an agent with Long & Foster in College Park.

"It's all by itself back there. People are intrigued by that. It's a small community, reasonably priced. You can really see the pride of ownership with the upkeep. They clean it like there's no tomorrow."

Helton said, "The places here are bright, spacious and very well maintained. And oddly enough, I've never met anyone intimidating on the trail. On the contrary, I've had people help me when I'm lost or I'm low on water."