Residents take pride in Huntington Terrace’s community spirit

“I shared my experiences growing up here and how much it meant to my husband and I to raise our family in Huntington Terrace,” she said. She also mentioned how Bethesda, like many places around the D.C. area, has seen older homes razed without regard for the charm or the culture of the community. So the Brees pledged not to tear the Cape Cod down and to keep its facade.

Despite offering less money, the couple got the house.

“They wrote us a beautiful letter about how much the house and the neighborhood meant to them, just like my letter to them,” Maggie said.

Obtaining the house fulfilled what Maggie called “a major mission” to maintain the elements that “created a sense of community for me, like keeping an eye on overdevelopment and keeping up our historical properties.” As co-president of the Huntington Terrace Citizens’ Association, she and John, who serves as secretary, have been doing just that since they joined the association in 2018.

Huntington Terrace has neighbors with a mix of ages and varied occupations, Maggie said. “On one corner could be a NASA scientist and on another, a world-renowned author.”

“It comes across mostly as a village,” said Howard Sokolove, who’s been living in Huntington Terrace with his wife for 40 years. “Part of that comes from having an elementary school in the neighborhood, which is a big draw for families.”

Sokolove, 80, is a neighborhood historian. He said the community’s land was part of two large tobacco plantations stretching back to the early 1700s. The area was platted in 1910. According to Sokolove, the west side was developed in the 1920s, with two homes from that era still in existence.

The rest of the area was built in the 1930s. Sokolove said that, like most of the bedroom communities of Washington, at the time, Huntington Terrace probably had racial covenants preventing African Americans and other historically excluded populations from living there.

Sokolove, who worked in industrial design before retiring, points out that Suburban Hospital, where his wife worked for 38 years, is the biggest property owner in the community. He said they’re “good neighbors,” but expansion efforts about 14 years ago threatened to remove 23 houses in Huntington Terrace. After many court battles, the sides settled, and Sokolove and other activists saved 13 houses from destruction.

Now, about 300 homes make up the neighborhood of freshly mowed lawns, neat landscaping and a preponderance of mature trees that gives the area plenty of shade and beautiful greenery.

“There are a lot of kids, dogs and parents on the streets,” said Mark De Ravin, treasurer of the local association. De Ravin likes the neighborhood so much that his family has lived in three different houses on the same street for the past 22 years.

Ron Ziegel, a real estate agent at Long & Foster in Bethesda, said buyers have long been attracted to Huntington Terrace’s convenient location to the National Institutes of Health, downtown Bethesda and the Medical Center Metro stop. Its schools, including Bradley Hills Elementary, located in the heart of the neighborhood, are also a draw.

Association dues are $20 annually and are voluntary. John and Maggie Bree said the money collected goes toward at least three events, including a Memorial Day party and Fourth of July get-together, along with various block parties and maintaining the community’s Triangle Garden.

The Brees are particularly proud of the garden, which features plants native to Maryland. The neighborhood helps cultivate the space on the corner of Roosevelt and Garfield streets with black-eyed Susans, blue wood asters and other flowers that grow naturally in the state. Garden tours from nearby Bradley Hills Village often stop by to admire the greenery, according to John.

John said Halloween is one of the highlights of the neighborhood. Before moving to Huntington Terrace, he said he had seen some terrific Halloween displays and events. “But I was wrong,” he said. “The people who live on Lincoln Street [in Huntington Terrace] go all out.”

One family builds a wooden maze draped in black cloth, with black lights and smoke machines. Family members jump out and scare visitors as they walk through it, he said. Another house has a skeleton-themed safari boat in the front yard.

“It’s just crazy,” John said. “Kids come from all over to see the street.”

He said a lot of younger families have moved into the neighborhood over the past few years, and they’ve built up Halloween and community spirit. “They’re bringing new ideas to elevate the neighborhood and make everyone feel like they’re part of it,” John said.

During the peak of the pandemic, the board members scaled back community events, Maggie said. But they still managed to organize get-togethers, such as Front Porch Fridays, where neighbors gathered for wine, cheese and music.

Maggie said they’ve been slow to ramp activities back up, but they’re planning a fall block party that should kick-start events.

The couple enjoy working on the board and hope to continue in the future.

“We work on it because we want people to respect how much the neighborhood is loved,” Maggie said. “Because we get worried that, as time goes by, that sentiment might go away.”

Living there: Huntington Terrace is a close-knit, walkable community that’s only about a five-minute drive to downtown Bethesda and borders the grounds of Suburban Hospital on Old Georgetown Road.

As the Brees experienced, the neighborhood has become more difficult to buy into. After purchasing their house for $585,000 in 2017, they put more than $100,000 into renovating the three-bedroom, three-bathroom Cape Cod with a finished basement. In the past year, the lowest-priced house sold was $825,000 for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, according to Ziegel.

The highest-priced home sold was a five-bedroom, five-bathroom renovated house for almost $2 million. The median price the past year was $1.2 million. One home is on the market, an eight-bedroom, seven-bathroom renovated house for $2 million, Ziegel said.

Schools: Bradley Hills Elementary, Pyle Middle and Walt Whitman High.

Transit: The Medical Center Metro station on the Red Line is about two miles away. Metro and Ride On buses serve the neighborhood along Old Georgetown Road.