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Vintage Rockville, Showing Its Ages
Former Rockville mayor Alexander Greene's longtime home is an 1891 Queen Anne Victorian; it was once a rooming house.
(By Robert A. Reeder For The Washington Post)
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A drawback is the traffic. O'Meara's home is on West Montgomery Avenue, which is part of Route 28 and links to Interstate 270.
"I grew up on a busy street. I wasn't scared by it, [and] we're kind of set back, but the soot and dirt takes a toll on some of the houses that are closer," O'Meara said.
What troubles her more is new construction around the neighborhood. There has been a spurt in recent years as larger lots are subdivided and older homes without historic protection are demolished.
"Some infill is great, but the bulk [of new homes] clash with styles and design of the neighborhood. You can't legislate taste, design and style," O'Meara said.
She's not the only one reacting to the ongoing building.
"We've been overtaken by urbanization, but we still think it's the best neighborhood in the best city in the world," said Jayne Greene, who has lived in West End Park for nearly half a century.
Greene fancied the neighborhood and, in particular, her 1891 Queen Anne home, long before she actually owned it.
"I'd pass through every day when I walked the kids to school. I always envied them their big houses and I liked this house," said Greene, 84.
She watched the five-bedroom, two-bath house sell twice before she and her husband, Alexander, 83, a retired federal employee and former Rockville mayor, bought it in 1958. The Greenes added a third bathroom and a sunroom and reared five children in the turreted Victorian.
"It's got room, tall ceilings and a sense of space," Alexander Greene said.
The house also has a history that has revealed itself in bits and pieces over the years.
The Greenes have been told it was a rooming house at some point. That would explain the sheer number of what Jayne Greene refers to as "the world's most amazing collection of useless bottles of medicine and milk from the early '20s."
She said the bottles turned up when her husband, out working in the yard, dug into the remnants of an icehouse. They also found the frame of an old buggy and, in the attic, a license tag from 1911.
From their own time, the Greenes recall a neighborhood that was more settlement than city.
"We were the last outpost in the county. The last bus stop was across the street. Now everything has grown," Alexander Greene said. "Traffic is a constant stream, [but] the neighborhood was always great. It still is."
