Relative Comfort

The Lethbridges

WHEN YOU TURN INTO THE DRIVEWAY FROM MARYLAND ROUTE 198 IN BURTONSVILLE, you wind past a volleyball court and a softball field, past a group of houses clustered like old friends at a party, past barns storing construction equipment and past two swimming pools before reaching woods filled with fox and deer, and four custom-built houses, each one spacious and soaring on a five-acre lot.

You've traveled the spine that connects three generations: 11 houses, 31 people and 15 dogs.

The Lethbridges call it "the neighborhood." Farmed until the 1950s, its 44 acres originally contained two family farmhouses. Another group of houses was built in the 1950s and 1960s. Construction of the newest houses began in the 1980s.

It's a family compound in the self-sufficient, rural sense rather than the pinkies-up Hyannis sense. There's nothing cultish or religious about it -- unless you count the shared faith in family and land that has defined this place for nearly 100 years. The operating system is simple: Lethbridge men are usually builders and carpenters. Lethbridge women usually stay home to raise children or teach in their children's schools. The oldest generation helps look after the youngest.

But the neighborhood can seem complicated at first, especially for newcomers such as 44-year-old Lynn Lethbridge. A military child who never spent time with her cousins, she had little sense of extended family. When she fell in love with her husband, Kevin Lethbridge, more than 20 years ago, she married not only him but also his family and the five acres he had claimed as his own.

"I started making payments to my grandparents on this property when I was 18 years old," Kevin says. "I paid them $200 a month."

Eventually, he built his own house with help from his father, brothers and brothers-in law. Kevin, 45, owns JM Development. His older brother Keith is Lethbridge Contractors. His nephew Kenny is RK Remodeling. His brother-in-law Dale is a partner at Sturbridge Homes. His older brother Ronnie is a partner at Classic Community Corp., where his brother-in-law Allan also works.

Most of the folks in this extended family went to Burtonsville Elementary School and Paint Branch High School, and they have made a point of sending their children there as well. The Lethbridges are big on supervision, which can be the same as minding everyone else's business. If you live here, you really know your neighbors.

"There's no drugs and alcohol, things like that," Kevin says. "And it's not like, if the kids were to have a party, someone wouldn't know. Anytime a car comes in around here, you get a phone call: 'Why's this car coming in? Do you know who this is?' There's always a neighborhood watch."

The properties are individually owned. The older family members, in their 60s and 70s, still live in a cluster of older houses built on lots of one to two acres.

In Kevin's generation, Keith, Sherry, Stacey and Hal each built on a five-acre lot. Their cousin Dawn just moved into the last new house that zoning laws allow on the 44-acre property.

When Kevin was growing up, he says, the family spent more time together than it does now, eating dinner every Sunday at his late grandparents' home. Although the family still congregates -- Christmas breakfast at Kevin's mother's house is a revered command performance -- traditions have loosened slightly as the generation that remembers Victory gardens yields to the one that instant-messages.