Brookmont

In This Neighborhood, the Kayak Is King

By Karen Tanner Allen
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, June 10, 2000; Page H01

Living in the Brookmont neighborhood of Bethesda and not kayaking, Bill Guerry often says, is like living in Aspen, Colo., and not knowing how to ski.

That's partly why Guerry started kayaking seven years ago, as soon as he and his wife, Samantha, moved to the neighborhood. Now, like many of his neighbors, he paddles in the nearby Potomac River a few times a week.

"I can take a kayak from my house, put it in the feeder canal down to the rapids and paddle up the canal," Bill Guerry said. "It's an incredible loop out of your backyard."

Easy access to some of the most beautiful spots along the Potomac and a well-used practice whitewater slalom course make kayakers a regular presence in this older, secluded neighborhood. Late afternoons and many early mornings, bands of hardy young people amble along the quiet streets on their way to kayaking club practice. Kayakers seeking rooms for rent post their signs on an outdoor billboard in the main traffic circle. Several paddlers who compete or are training for the Olympics live in the neighborhood. And almost every other house has a boat or two, or five, in its back yard. Kayaks are even stacked up behind the church-cum-social hall at the neighborhood's center.

Brookmont was an obvious choice for Bill and Abbie Endicott when they were looking to move from their Washington apartment 20 years ago. Bill Endicott was then coaching the U.S. whitewater team, working on a book, and using the word processor at a friend's Brookmont house.

"I said, 'I ought to live here,' " recalled Endicott, now 54. "It's about a 90-second run from my house to the training course."

But Brookmont is not just about kayaking. Located on a bluff off MacArthur Boulevard overlooking the Potomac, the neighborhood also has attracted numerous environmentalists, artists, bicyclists and other outdoor enthusiasts who are drawn to the idea of life near the river. Many of them have found it is a great place to raise children.

Steven Malloch, a lawyer for an environmental group, says he frequently rides his bike to his office in Rosslyn.

The other night, "I went fishing for shad, basically in walking distance from my house," said Malloch, who has a 3-year-old child. "I kayak; I can put in below the Brookmont dam and take in an evening paddle."

"It just has a real sense of community," said Chris Weintrob, another resident and mother of a 1-year-old. "We have lots of friends in the neighborhood. When we go out, we just go down the street."

If you miss the turn from MacArthur onto Maryland Avenue, just north of the District line, you miss the whole neighborhood. But finding Brookmont is like landing in a place, many say, straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

The neighborhood's 200 houses sit close together, chiefly on three main streets. Front porches are common; most front doors are just steps from the street. Yards are small enough for neighbors to wave at one another.

Standing on his front lawn on a recent mild afternoon, Roger Harris, 64, greeted at least five people in 15 minutes.

While front and back yards are small, the public space is vast. Because the neighborhood has only a single way to enter and leave, the streets are free from traffic. They are taken over instead by dog-walkers, cyclists, parents or nannies with children.

Along with the nearby C&O Canal towpath and Crescent biking trail, the neighborhood has its own playground and open field at one end, which is run by Montgomery County. A tree-lined grassy median runs the length of Broad Street, serving as front yard for the houses on that street and as a greenway for children to run from one end of the neighborhood to the other. The "Village Green" is also where many neighborhood-wide events are staged.

This is the kind of communal space that developers of newer neighborhoods try to manufacture; Brookmont got its space in 1960 when streetcars abandoned the line between Cabin John and downtown.

The nearest grocery store is a mile away at Little Falls Mall, but at the neighborhood's Brookmont Church there are a preschool and after-school care center, yoga classes, a weight-lifting room and even a massage therapist or two. Dawn Page commutes two blocks to her job as director of the preschool, which serves about 25 neighborhood children for preschool or after-school care. "I walk my daughter to the bus and then walk to the school," said Page, whose son is at the preschool.

There are still occasional non-denominational services at the church, but the building's role for almost a decade also has been to provide educational, social and charitable programs to the residents, said the church's minister, Peter Ainsley, who lives in an apartment on site.

The neighborhood's setting and a bumper crop of children--50 younger than 5, at last count--contribute to a swell of community activity. Anyone who considers an annual block party to be a strong show of neighborhood spirit should check out Brookmont.

There is a neighborhood yard sale, a Fourth of July parade, an Easter egg hunt, Halloween parties and, just this past November, the first annual Brookmont Blues Bash. This coincided with a triathlon, also organized with the help of Brookmont residents. Bales of hay were brought in by residents, who also put up a barbecue and heard blues music provided by a neighbor's band. When Roger Harris held a 90th birthday party last August for his mother, Alice, one of the neighborhood's longest-term residents, he put up a tent on his front lawn and invited the neighborhood for punch and cake. "About 175 people showed up," he said. "It was a great day."

With the leadership of Ainsley, the minister, there have also been concerts in the church building; a monthly "salon" that meets to talk about general issues; group field trips for hikes or a visit to a museum, and a variety of social action projects.

Brookmont has its own newsletter, civic league, art alliance, neighborhood block captains and committees for various issues or events.

Such organization helps give the neighborhood political clout; residents have rallied on a variety of issues. For example, after flooding in 1996, residents worked to help the Interior Department's Park Service get water back in the C&O canal and repair the towpath.

Some residents also would like a second, safer way to cross the Clara Barton Parkway. There is a pedestrian bridge on one end of the neighborhood, but on the other end, despite a marked crosswalk, it can be a sometimes-harrowing dash against fast-moving cars.

Brookmont has not escaped the airplane noise that afflicts other neighborhoods in the flight path to Reagan National Airport, so residents have been vocal in opposition to increasing air traffic.

On warm summer days a stench can waft over the canal and towpath; it seems to come from open vents on a sewer line that runs through Montgomery County and all the way to Dulles International Airport, said Malloch, who is president of the Brookmont Civic League. The Civic League was among those urging the sewer authority to take care of the problem, he said.

Residents also are raising money and working with the county to get new equipment for the neighborhood playground and improve the adjacent playing field, which has drainage problems.

Brookmont was just a smattering of modest cottages on a cornfield when resident Alice Harris and her husband settled there 65 years ago. That was before the flood of 1935 washed away some vacation dwellings at the bottom of the hill and before construction of the Clara Barton Parkway.

"There was a big cornfield in the back," Harris said. "The man up on the hill used to bring his cow down and graze; it was just real country."

Over the years, the white-shingled Harris cottage was surrounded by houses of all kinds, most of which have gone through varying degrees of change over the years. As in other communities, the home-renovation trend has hit Brookmont. But the result is that building styles--and occupants--are so eclectic, they cannot be categorized. A renovated Victorian-style home may sit next to a modest cottage unchanged from the 1920s; a ranch house might sit next to a contemporary home with picture windows; and long-time residents co-exist next to young kayakers in a group house.

Brookmont is not for those in search of grand homes, large lots and circular driveways, local real estate agents say. Nor is it for people who care whether their neighbors' yards or houses are in immaculate condition. But even the most run-down properties might fetch $300,000, agents said, because the community is so desirable.

"You're not getting all the space in the world, but you're paying for exclusion," said agent Jane Fairweather of Fairweather-Coldwell Banker Realty Pros. "It is this little secret enclave that is highly sought after by people who like to be close in, but who like all the benefits of living in a little country town."

There are people who leave Brookmont because they can't find a house among the few that go on the market each year to meet the needs of their growing or changing families. But while there, most say they enjoy the closeness of the community and the benefits of the outdoors, hard to match in the metropolitan area.

"It's like having this huge, wild place next to your doorstep," said Abbie Endicott, a singer and songwriter. "It's such a country feeling here."

WHERE WE LIVE: Brookmont

BOUNDARIES: Two main roads run parallel to each other: Broad Street and Ridge Drive. These are intersected by several cross streets. All are on a cul-de-sac off MacArthur Boulevard, overlooking the Clara Barton Parkway and the Potomac River.

HOME SALES: Housing includes original 1920s cottages, two-story colonials, ranch-style houses and new Victorian-style homes. There are some apartments. Four houses sold in the last six months, at prices ranging from $280,000 to more than $850,000, said Donna Walsh of Gerlach Real Estate.

SCHOOLS: Bannockburn Elementary, Thomas W. Pyle Middle and Walt Whitman High

WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE: Potomac River, the Capital Crescent bicycle trail, the C&O Canal, park and playground.