Redevelopment preserves history of National Park Seminary

Nestled just inside the Capital Beltway, the 32-acre National Park Seminary in Silver Spring feels far removed from the busy traffic. The enchanting architecture of this former girls school looks plucked right out of a fairy tale.

A Japanese pagoda, a Dutch windmill, a Swiss chalet, an Italian villa, a Spanish mission hacienda and a medieval castle are among the 27 buildings scattered around the campus in a wooded dell known as Forest Glen.

For nearly three decades, these fanciful buildings sat vacant and derelict while local residents waged a battle to save the seminary. Their successful efforts have resulted in one of Maryland’s most ambitious preservation projects.

The $120 million redevelopment undertaken by the Alexander Co. of Madison, Wis., involves restoring and recycling the existing school buildings into condominiums, as well as constructing new rental apartments and town houses.

The first big chunk of the renovation, which has been plagued by construction delays, is finally nearing completion and will be unveiled to the public at an open house from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 26.

The slow-going progress has paid off in the seminary’s oldest buildings where changes stay remarkably true to the Victorian architecture. Given the benefit of tax credits, the Alexander Co. has adhered to preservation standards enforced by Montgomery County and Maryland’s State Historic Preservation Office.

From the guest parking lot, visitors are greeted by the caryatids of Aloha House, built in 1898 by the school’s founders, educators John and Vesta Cassedy, and now transformed into condominiums.

Stained-glass windows remain intact throughout the former octagonal chapel, one of the most expensive units to be sold.

Original turrets, porches and fireplace mantels still stand in many of the 50 condos carved out of the meandering Queen Anne-style structure at the heart of the project.

“The building is different from one section to another because it was added to over time,” says developer Joe Alexander, whose projects include the revitalization of Central Station in Memphis. “Every unit had to be independently designed. No two are the same. That is a huge challenge from both a design and a construction standpoint.”

The oldest portion of the rambling condominium was built in 1887 as a rustic hotel called Ye Forest Inne. Its dining room, complete with massive fireplace, now serves as a community space and fitness center for residents.

In 1893, the inn was renovated into a boarding school and expanded over the next few decades with a movie theater, a music conservatory, clubhouses and other structures.

The grandest of these spaces is a four-story ballroom added to the main building in 1927. Its disparate design of Romanesque brick arches, gothic tracery and trusses, crystal chandeliers and plaster busts has been painstakingly restored. The rooms behind its balconies have been turned into long and narrow condos with views of the surrounding woods.

At its peak before the 1929 stock market crash, the seminary was attended by 400 girls who paid tuition higher than Harvard’s. It lost enrollment during the Great Depression and in 1942 was confiscated by the U.S. Army under the War Powers Act to become a convalescent home for returning soldiers.

In the late 1970s, the school buildings were deemed inadequate for such therapy and the Army abandoned much of the property. Water damage, arson and vandalism followed to destroy much of the setting’s historic charm.

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