Glenmont is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. The United States Census Bureau had combined Glenmont with nearby Wheaton to create the census-designated place of Wheaton-Glenmont, from 2000 to 2010. It had a population of 16,710 in 2020.
Geography
Due to its unincorporated nature, the boundaries are difficult to precisely define, but the center of the community is located at the intersection of Randolph Road and Georgia Avenue (Maryland State Highway 97).
History
Historic homes
The Hermitage
thumb|right|The Hermitage, around 1952.
A brick Colonial manor house, named the Hermitage, was built by John Bowie Jr., in 1750. Bowie's father, John Bowie Sr., was a Scottish immigrant who arrived in America around 1705. John Bowie Jr. purchased the land for 25cents per acre, and on it he built the Hermitage for his sixteen-year-old son, Allen Bowie Jr. The property itself was located around where Georgian Forest Park is today. Two years later, John died, and Allen moved to the property. In June 1774, Allen was part of a now-famous meeting at Hungerford's Tavern in today's Rockville where those in attendance fiercely criticized Great Britain and decided they should stop trading with it. During the American Revolution, Allen Bowie commanded a company of troops, which he funded himself.
Allen's son, Washington Bowie, was born in the Hermitage on August 12, 1776. Washington Bowie, nicknamed the merchant prince, later built a mansion at 3124 Q Street NW in Georgetown, which is today called the Bowie-Sevier House. Allen's other son, John, inherited the Hermitage after his father died. John was a doctor, and he fought in the War of 1812. Ell is buried in the Beall Cemetery, located on Beechview Lane.
By 1880, a second story had been added to the house, it had apple and peach trees, and there was a dairy, a wheelwright shop, and a paint shop on the land. That year, the trustee sold the property to Sarah R. Nicholson for $1,827.20 (). The Nicholson family owned the property for many years to come.
Naming of the area
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the area contained a few houses and small farms lining the Washington–Brookeville Turnpike, as Georgia Avenue was then called. The Hardy family farm was located between current-day Randolph Road and Parker Avenue and stayed in the family for generations. In 1898, Mary Hardy gave the name Glenmont to the area's post office at what is now Georgia Avenue and Randolph Road. Although the post office was closed in 1901, the name for the area stuck,
Glenmont School
Glenmont's first school opened in 1926. Built at a cost of $50,000, the Glenmont School had 136 students enrolled in its first school year. Miss Ruth Burroughs was the first principal. The brick schoolhouse had four classrooms, two special department rooms, and an auditorium. Major E. Brooke Lee donated a memorial flag pole, which was dedicated in the memory of Paul Latene Hull, who was killed in action in France during World War I.
A school extension designed by V.T.H. Bien was built in 1946, adding office space and a large space used as a gymnasium and cafeteria. Commercial and residential development began transforming the rural area known as Glenmont in 1949, with two major developments, Glenmont Village and Glenmont Forest.
In 1947, the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission built the tall Glenmont Water Tower, a multi‐columned elevated water tank with a capacity of . The water allowed for residential growth in and around Glenmont.
Georgia Avenue Baptist Church was built in 1956, and an education wing was added in 1962.
In 1952, Edward C. Baltz, Thornton W. Owen, David S. Moore, and Edward L. Strohecker Sr., announced a plan to construct a shopping center and 1,000 homes on 250 acres at Georgia Avenue, Layhill Road, and Randolph Road. The Glenmont Land and Development Corporation began construction of the shopping center in 1956. The center was not constructed in one building campaign. It was expanded as the developers were able to bring in new businesses. In its original construction, each store had a large plate glass display windows held in by tubular aluminum, known as an "open design." One portion of the shopping area, known as the "Arcade", included a 24-lane bowling alley. The alley was named for Alphone "Tuffy" Leeman, who played for the New York Giants in the 1930s and 1940s. By 1957, the shopping center included the bowling alley, a dry cleaner, a hardware store, and a restaurant. A Grand Union supermarket opened in 1959. By 1962, the shopping center included a hairstylist, barber shop, shoe service, insurance agency, Glenmont Inn Restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, a hardware store, a saving and loan association, a High's Dairy Store, a glass and mirror store, a bicycle store, a People's Drug Store, and a post office. One of the largest obstacles in widespread renovation to the Glenmont Shopping Center is that it is actually divided into 15 different parcels of land that are owned by 12 different property owners. With stable rents, low vacancy rates, and low cost of ownership, the property owners have little motivation for large, coordinated improvements of the shopping center.
The Glenmont Metro station serves the area. This underground station, which opened in 1998, is at the east end of the Red Line, and has two large parking garages. From Glenmont, the Red Line heads south through downtown Silver Spring and to the District of Columbia before re-entering Montgomery County at Bethesda, traveling through Rockville, and ending at Shady Grove.
Government
The Kensington Volunteer Fire Department has a fire station at the intersection of Randolph Road and Georgia Avenue. The station was designed by architect Ted Englehardy as a large Colonial Revival wing-and-gable building. the exterior of the building is of brick construction and contains an exterior chimney and clock tower.
Montgomery County Police District 4 headquarters is also located at the intersection. The police station was designed by Bagley, Soule & Associates of Chevy Chase in 1958. The construction was completed in 1959. The building has several additions, which reflect a change from the original Colonial Revival design. The complex features traditional details including denticulated cornices, brick laid in American bond course, molded brick surrounds, and double hung sash windows.
The Maryland-National Capital Park Police has its headquarters in an old elementary school on Layhill Road.
Civic associations
In October 2008, the Greater Glenmont Civic Association a 501(c)(3) was founded by retired Navy SEAL Kris Kumaroo, MBA/MS and concerned neighbors to address crime rates in Glenmont and to encourage the Montgomery County government to revitalize the Glenmont area, just as the county had done in the neighboring Wheaton and Silver Spring areas. According to Greater Glenmont Civic Association documents, crime decreased in the Glenmont area by about 15% as of June 2010. The Greater Glenmont Civic Association won several awards and grants for its activities, and its founder featured on the front page of The Washington Post https://blog.frontporchforum.com/2009/05/09/in-tough-economic-times-people-invest-in-community/ The group became defunct in 2014.
Glenmont Exchange was incorporated in 2013 to promote community in the area.
Glenmont Forest Neighbors Civic Association (GFNCA) was created in 2008 to serve the approximately 900 households in the community. The northern boundary is Randolph Road, southern boundary is Henderson and the western boundary is Kendall with Georgia Avenue to the east. This award-winning organization has been able to improve the infrastructure in the community including sidewalks, curbs, street lighting, paving and other traffic and pedestrian safety measures. Quality of life improvements include multiple Little Free Libraries and a new park at the intersection of Georgia and Randolph.
Housing
Glenmont has seven multifamily rental apartment buildings, namely Privacy World, Winexburg Manor, Glenmont Forest, Woodberry Park, The Glen, Westerly Park, and The Oakfield.<sup>p. 14</sup> The rest of the area consists of single-family homes and some townhouses. Most of the housing west of Georgia Avenue is older and smaller; east of Georgia Avenue, the homes are newer and larger. However, there are a few sites west of Georgia Avenue where homeowners have demolished small, older homes and built larger, newer homes in their place. About 62 percent of the area's housing units are owner-occupied, although this is less than the countywide homeownership rate of 75 percent.
Glenmont Village is a residential subdivision of single family homes on the west side of the center of Glenmont. Financed by the Minneapolis-based Investors Diversified Solutions, Inc., the homes were built in 1949 and 1950. Glenmont Village originally included 30 blocks and approximately 350 buildings. Two-bedroom houses originally sold for $8,890 each. Glenmont Village advertised the two-bedroom Cape Cod-style houses as "modern bungalows". The houses featured full basements, gas heat, hot water, and an expandable attic level with a full-width dormer in the rear. There were four basic varieties of houses. Over the years, the houses have been customized.