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Chevy Chase, Maryland

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This article is about the various neighboring areas in Maryland that share the name "Chevy Chase". For other uses, see Chevy Chase (disambiguation).
Chevy Chase, Maryland
Various neighboring areas
The former 4-H Youth Conference Center, which is to be redeveloped into senior housing
The former 4-H Youth Conference Center, which is to be redeveloped into senior housing
A map showing the location of Chevy Chase, Maryland.
A map showing the location of Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Chevy Chase
Location of Chevy Chase in Maryland
A map showing the location of Chevy Chase, Maryland.
A map showing the location of Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Chevy Chase
Chevy Chase (the United States)
Coordinates: 38°58′16″N 77°04′35″W / 38.97111°N 77.07639°W / 38.97111; -77.07639
Country United States
State Maryland
County Montgomery
Established1890; 134 years ago (1890)

Chevy Chase (/ˈtʃɛviː tʃeɪs/) is the colloquial name of an area that includes a town, several incorporated villages, and an unincorporated census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland; and one adjoining neighborhood in northwest Washington, D.C. Most of these derive from a late-19th-century effort to create a new suburb that its developer dubbed Chevy Chase after a colonial land patent.

Primarily residential, Chevy Chase adjoins Friendship Heights, a popular shopping district. It is the home of the Chevy Chase Club and Columbia Country Club, private clubs whose members include many prominent politicians and Washingtonians.[1]

The name is derived from Cheivy Chace, the name of the land patented to Colonel Joseph Belt from Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, on July 10, 1725. It has historic associations with a 1388 chevauchée, a French word describing a border raid, fought by Lord Percy of England and Earl Douglas of Scotland over hunting grounds, or a "chace", in the Cheviot Hills of Northumberland and Otterburn.[2] The battle was memorialized in "The Ballad of Chevy Chase".

Elements

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The area known as Chevy Chase includes several entities in southern Montgomery County:

It also includes the neighborhood of Chevy Chase in northwest Washington, D.C.

The United States Postal Service also uses "Chevy Chase" for some postal addresses that lie outside these areas: the town of Somerset, the Village of Friendship Heights, and the part of the Rock Creek Forest neighborhood that lies east of Jones Mill Road and Beach Drive and west of Grubb Road.[3]

History

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19th century

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In the 1880s, Senator Francis G. Newlands of Nevada and his partners began acquiring farmland in unincorporated areas of Maryland and just inside the District of Columbia, for the purpose of developing a residential streetcar suburb for Washington, D.C., during the expansion of the Washington streetcars system. Newlands and his partners founded The Chevy Chase Land Company in 1890, and its holdings of more than 1,700 acres (6.9 km2) eventually extended along the present-day Connecticut Avenue from Florida Avenue north to Jones Bridge Road.

Newlands, an avowed white supremacist, and his development company took steps to ensure that residents of its new suburbs would be wealthy and white;[4] for example, "requiring, in the deed to the land, that only a single-family detached house costing a large amount of money could be constructed. The Chevy Chase Land Company did not include explicit bars against non-white people, known as racial covenants, but the mandated cost of the house made it impractical for all but the wealthiest non-white people to buy the land." Houses were required to cost $5,000 and up on Connecticut Avenue and $3,000 and up on side streets.[5] The company banned commerce from the residential neighborhoods.[6]

Leon E. Dessez was Chevy Chase's first resident. He and Lindley Johnson of Philadelphia designed the first four houses in the area.[7]

Toward the northern end of its holdings, the Land Company dammed Coquelin Run, a stream that crossed its land, to create the manmade Chevy Chase Lake. The body of water furnished water to the coal-fired generators that powered the streetcars of the Land Company's Rock Creek Railway. The streetcar soon became vital to the community; it connected workers to the city, and even ran errands for residents.

The lake was also the centerpiece of the Land Company's Chevy Chase Lake trolley park, a venue for boating, swimming, and other activities meant to draw city dwellers to the new suburb.[8] Similar considerations led the Land Company to build a hotel at 7100 Connecticut Avenue; it opened it in 1894 as the Chevy Chase Spring Hotel and was later renamed the Chevy Chase Inn. "The hotel failed to attract sufficient patrons, especially during the winter months," wrote the Chevy Chase Historical Society, and in 1895, the Land Company leased the property for a year to the Young Ladies Seminary.[9]

Part of the original Cheivy Chace patent had been sold to Abraham Bradley, who built an estate known as the Bradley Farm.[10] In 1892, Newlands and other members of the Metropolitan Club of Washington, D.C., founded a hunt club called Chevy Chase Hunt, which would later become Chevy Chase Club. In 1894, the club located itself on the former Bradley Farm property under a lease from its owners. The club introduced a six-hole golf course to its members in 1895, and purchased the 9.36-acre Bradley Farm tract in 1897.[11][10][12]

20th century

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In 1906, the Chevy Chase Land Company blocked a proposed subdivision called Belmont after they learned its Black developers aimed to sell house lots to other African Americans. In subsequent litigation, the company and its affiliates argued that those developers had committed fraud by proposing "to sell lots...to negroes."[13]

By the 1920s, restrictive covenants were added to Chevy Chase real estate deeds. Some prohibited both the sale or rental of homes to "a Negro or one of the African race." Others prohibited sales or rentals to "any persons of the Semetic [sic] race"—i.e., Jews.[13]

By World War II, such restrictive language had largely disappeared from real estate transactions, and all were voided by the 1948 Supreme Court decision in Shelley v. Kraemer.

In 1964, Arthur Krock wrote an article for The New York Times alleging that the Chevy Chase Country Club barred "Negroes" and "one ethnic group of Caucasians" from membership. In response, Club president Randall H. Hagnar denied that the club excluded Black or Jewish people; he said that no members were African-Americans but that several were Jewish.[14]

In 1903, Lea M. Bouligny bought the old Chevy Chase Inn and founded the Chevy Chase College and Seminary.[9] The name was changed to Chevy Chase Junior College in 1927. The National 4-H Club Foundation purchased the property in 1951,[15] turning it into the group's Youth Conference Center. For decades, the center hosted the National 4-H Conference, an event for 4-Hers throughout the nation to attend, and the annual National Science Bowl in late April or early May.[16]

21st century

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The National 4-H Club Foundation sold the center in 2021 for $40 million; as of 2022, it is to be replaced by a senior living development.[17]

Education

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Chevy Chase is served by the Montgomery County Public Schools. Residents of Chevy Chase are zoned to Somerset, Chevy Chase or North Chevy Chase Elementary School, which feed into Silver Creek Middle School, Westland Middle School and Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. Private schools in Chevy Chase include Concord Hill School, Oneness-Family School, and Blessed Sacrament School.

Rochambeau French International School formerly had a campus in Chevy Chase.[18]

Retail

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For decades, a six-block stretch of Wisconsin Avenue in Friendship Heights and Chevy Chase has been the only place partially or wholly in Washington, D.C., with multiple traditional department stores, namely, Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor and Neiman Marcus.[19] The latter two closed in 2020, as did the indoor shopping center at the Chevy Chase Pavilion.[20] As of 2022, two department stores remain, both on the Maryland side: a freestanding Saks Fifth Avenue and a Bloomingdale's in a multiuse center that also includes a Whole Foods Market, boutiques, and residential and office space.

Along the D.C. stretch of Wisconsin Avenue are:

On the Maryland stretch are:

  • Neiman Marcus at Mazza Gallerie, opened 1977, closed 2020
    Neiman Marcus at Mazza Gallerie, opened 1977, closed 2020
  • Mazza Gallerie: old building razed, new building under construction, March 2024
    Mazza Gallerie: old building razed, new building under construction, March 2024
  • Chevy Chase Pavilion (right) and Neiman Marcus (left), 2008.
    Chevy Chase Pavilion (right) and Neiman Marcus (left), 2008.
  • Chevy Chase Pavilion (left) and Neiman Marcus (right), 2016
    Chevy Chase Pavilion (left) and Neiman Marcus (right), 2016
  • Chevy Chase Pavilion, empty retail and dining area, March 2024
    Chevy Chase Pavilion, empty retail and dining area, March 2024
  • The Shops at Wisconsin Place, March 2024
    The Shops at Wisconsin Place, March 2024
  • Saks Fifth Avenue
    Saks Fifth Avenue
  • The Collection at Chevy Chase, panorama of Wisconsin Avenue streetfront
    The Collection at Chevy Chase, panorama of Wisconsin Avenue streetfront
  • Lord & Taylor department store at opening in 1959 (closed 2020)
    Lord & Taylor department store at opening in 1959 (closed 2020)


Notable people

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Current residents

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Former residents

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Obama to Join Maryland Country Club". Washingtonian. 2017-10-06. Archived from the original on 2020-05-19. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
  2. ^ "The Naming of Chevy Chase". Chevy Chase Historical Society. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-11-02.
  3. ^ Lublin, David (2014-02-14). "The Mini Munis of Chevy Chase". Seventh State. Archived from the original on 2024-02-24. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  4. ^ Flanagan, Neil (2017-11-02). "The Battle of Fort Reno". Washington City Paper. Archived from the original on 2022-05-22. Retrieved 2022-05-27.
  5. ^ Ohmann, Richard Malin (1996). Selling Culture: Magazines, Markets, and Class at the Turn of the Century. Verso.
  6. ^ Dryden, Steve (1999). "The History of Chevy Chase and Friendship Heights". Bethesda Magazine. Archived from the original on 2013-06-15. Retrieved 2017-11-02.
  7. ^ Benedetto, Robert; Donovan, Jane; Vall, Kathleen Du (2003). Historical Dictionary of Washington. Scarecrow Press. p. 53. ISBN 9780810840942.
  8. ^ "The History of Chevy Chase and Friendship Heights". Bethesda Magazine. September 27, 2010. Archived from the original on October 24, 2018. Retrieved October 24, 2018.
  9. ^ a b "Fashionable Suburban Location | Chevy Chase Historical Society". chevychasehistory.org. Retrieved 2024-04-02.
  10. ^ a b "The Naming of Chevy Chase | Chevy Chase Historical Society". www.chevychasehistory.org. Archived from the original on 2018-10-24. Retrieved 2018-10-24.
  11. ^ Early Days at the Chevy Chase Club Archived 2018-10-24 at the Wayback Machine, The Montgomery County Story, Montgomery County Historical Society, November 2001
  12. ^ "Chevy Chase Club - Club History". www.chevychaseclub.org. Archived from the original on 2018-10-24. Retrieved 2018-10-24.
  13. ^ a b Fisher, Marc (February 15, 1999). "Chevy Chase, 1916: For Everyman, a New Lot in Life". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on July 6, 2017. Retrieved September 20, 2017.
  14. ^ "Chevy Chase Country Club Denies Excluding Jews from Membership". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Archived from the original on 2023-06-20. Retrieved 2023-06-20.
  15. ^ "The Schools of Section Four - Chevy Chase Historical Society". Chevy Chase Historical Society. Archived from the original on 2017-05-12. Retrieved 2017-04-12.
  16. ^ "U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy, National Science Bowl®". United States Department of Energy. Archived from the original on 2017-08-13. Retrieved 2017-11-02.
  17. ^ Schere, Dan (2021-12-21). "Sale of 4-H site in Chevy Chase finalized for $40 million". Bethesda Magazine. Archived from the original on 2022-05-24. Retrieved 2022-04-19.
  18. ^ "Contacts". Rochambeau French International School. Archived from the original on 2000-01-23. Retrieved 2023-01-25.
  19. ^ "Friendship Heights Retail Action Strategy: Friendship Heights Strategic SWOT Analysis" (PDF). Office of Planning, District of Columbia Government. Retrieved 18 March 2024.
  20. ^ a b https://www.popville.com/2020/12/friendship-heights-is-looking-more-and-more-bare/
  21. ^ Pressler, Margaret Webb (February 26, 1998), "The 'De-Malling' of Mazza Gallerie", The Washington Post, retrieved 2022-07-12
  22. ^ Wells, Clara (2022-12-25). "Mazza Gallerie shopping center permanently closes". WTOP News. Retrieved 2022-12-26.
  23. ^ Sernovitz, Daniel J. (May 25, 2021). "Mazza Gallerie sold, to be redeveloped under new owner". American City Business Journals.
  24. ^ a b c d e Neate, Rupert (December 4, 2015). "Chevy Chase, Maryland: the super-rich town that has it all – except diversity". The Guardian. Archived from the original on May 27, 2021. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
  25. ^ Hull, Steve (July 23, 2018). "Washington Capitals' John Carlson Buys Home in Chevy Chase". Bethesda Magazine. Archived from the original on April 3, 2023. Retrieved April 3, 2023.
  26. ^ Pollak, Suzanne (2023-01-12). "Chevy Chase's Wu Named Secretary of Labor for Moore Administration". Montgomery Community Media. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
  27. ^ a b c d "Bethesda, Chevy Chase Homes of The Rich and Famous". Bethesda Magazine. October 10, 2012. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
  28. ^ a b Elfin, David (July 6, 2015). "Q&A with the Owners of the Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Devils and Washington Kastles". MoCo360. Archived from the original on March 22, 2023. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
  29. ^ Arsenault, Raymond (2006), Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199755813, archived from the original on 2024-02-25, retrieved 2020-10-25
  30. ^ "Hilary Rhoda - Fashion Model - Profile on New York Magazine". New York. Archived from the original on 2016-11-29. Retrieved 2016-12-02.
  31. ^ Richards, Chris (May 31, 2013). "Peter Rosenberg: From Montgomery County to top of the hip-hop heap". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 17, 2017. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
  32. ^ Giannotto, Mark (February 4, 2011). "Danny Rubin goes from Landon to Boston College walk-on to ACC starter". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on April 3, 2017. Retrieved December 28, 2017.
  33. ^ "Obituaries: Maj. Gen. Karl Truesdell". Chicago Tribune. Chicago, IL. Associated Press. July 18, 1955. p. F6. Archived from the original on April 23, 2022. Retrieved April 23, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
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