Leslie Beall House
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
When Leslie Beall died in 1965, the house was passed on to his daughter, Virginia Withers, who maintained an antique shop in the building. As the downtown area of Bethesda began substantial development, many neighbors sold off their land to developers, however, Withers remained adamant about keeping her land which stretches from the intersection of Old Georgetown Road and Arlington Rd to Moorland lane. In 1986, the Chevy Chase Saving and Loan Inc made a deal with Withers and the county planning board in which the house was kept and public green space was erected in exchange for denser development allowed in the new Chevy Chase Garden Plaza, which still remains today. In addition, to the North of the house, a gazebo was constructed that is now used to sell pizza. Currently, the house is an art studio.
Sources
Zita Arocha, "Novel Deal Saves House," The Washington Post (Washington, D.C.), November 18, 1986, accessed December 29, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1986/11/18/novel-deal-saves-house/a16a3736-bc0f-4075-ae3a-e519d84ccb09/.
Clare Lise Kelly, Places from the Past: The Tradition of Gardez Bien in Montgomery County, Maryland (Silver Spring, Md.: Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, 2001), 287, accessed December 29, 2020, https://montgomeryplanning.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Places-from-the-Past-web_with_cover.pdf.
Bethesda Briefing Book, 2014
hmbd.org