Hammond Wood Homes for Sale in Silver Spring, MD
The Hammond Wood Historic District is a notable mid-century modern subdivision situated in Maryland's Silver Spring area. This collection of 58 single-family homes was built between 1949 and 1951, and designed by prominent architect Charles M. Goodman. The homes are set into 15 acres of gently rolling, ungraded wooded terrain within the larger Wheaton neighborhood.
Hammond Wood Mid-Century Homes for Sale
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Maryland’s Montgomery County is known for its distinctive pockets of modernist design. Hammond Wood was developed by Paul Burman and Paul Hammond. The developers worked with Goodman to construct these simple yet striking homes that are fairly small in size—the original structures usually offered two or three bedrooms, with floorplans running from around 882 to 1,600 square feet inside.
Progressive Architecture in the Mid-Century Era
Charles M. Goodman’s merchant builder subdivisions in Washington Metro are celebrated for their innovation in post-World War II suburban planning. While his floorplans, the combination of both new and used materials, and other design techniques evolved through constant experimentation, the holistic integration of structure and nature remained a constant. His use of a large, dominant window wall brought the outdoors into the living space.
Homes for sale in Hammond Wood are recognizable by roofs with gradual and sometimes offset pitches, wide overhangs, dominant walls of windows on one or two sides, and smaller windows on the other. Extremely wide chimneys at one end are emblematic of the design. Other attributes include combinations of brick and clapboard for the exterior and cathedral ceilings that comport to the roof shape. The large end-wall fireplaces sometimes feature double hearths.
Famous Mid-Century Neighborhoods
Doors were originally painted in bold primary colors, such as red or yellow. This was a signature that Goodman used in other neighborhoods as well, including the Hickory Cluster townhomes in Reston. The houses didn’t typically some with garages, although some had carports. Simple cement patios are often still found in the back.
The Hammond Wood lots are sized between 1/6 to 1/4 of an acre, and true to the name of the neighborhood, quite woodsy with sloping, ungraded terrain. Typical to the modernist principles of integrating homes with nature, each house is uniquely situated to the topography and to its neighbors, providing both privacy and southern exposure to the dominant walls of windows. The homes were featured in the May 1952 issue of the now defunct Progressive Architecture magazine. And while the magazine itself is no longer in circulation, the eponymously named Progressive Architecture Award continued forward.
The team of Goodman, Burman and Hammond also simultaneously built Hammond Hill as an adjacent sister community of 20 homes, between 1949 and 1950. The Hammond Wood and Hammond Hill enclave is within a triangle formed by Veirs Mill Road, Connecticut Avenue and University Avenue. The neighborhood is about a mile from the downtown parts of both Wheaton and Kensington. There’s plenty of nearby restaurants, stores and entertainment in those two communities, as well as Bethesda and downtown Silver Spring. The Wheaton Metro Station with its Red Line service is about a mile away.
Charles M. Goodman’s Contributions to Mid-Century Modern Homes
Goodman may have been Washington’s most famous modernist architect during the post-World War II era. He worked extensively in Montgomery County, producing not only the Hammond Wood and Hammond Hill subdivisions, but Wheatoncrest, Rock Creek Woods, Takoma Avenue, Hollinridge and Crest Park as well.
Despite the 275 dwellings between those communities, Goodman is best-known for his work in Alexandria’s Hollin Hills—a prime example of iconic design with some 450 single-family homes tucked into natural splendor in the Hybla Valley region. Goodman was also responsible for Hickory Cluster’s 90 townhomes in Reston, the High Point duplexes in Arlington and the River Park Mutual Homes cooperative in Washington, DC’s Southwest Waterfront. He also built numerous custom homes.
Prior to his influential work in suburban modern housing communities, Goodman was an architect for the U.S. government, designing numerous buildings in the Washington, DC area for the Public Buildings Administration and the U.S. Treasuring Department, and usually with a modern flair!
Living in Montgomery County, MD
Residents of Hammond Wood are living just south of Wheaton-Glenmont and Kensington, and just north of Kensington and Silver Spring. These well-known communities are located in Maryland’s Montgomery County—the most populous county in Maryland and conveniently adjacent to Washington, DC to the south.
Montgomery County is known for its affluence, regularly ranked in leading publications and media sites as one of the wealthiest places in the nation. With over a million residents, the county combines cities and urban excitement with vast swaths of suburban utopia, replete with country clubs and verdant greenspace.
Those living in a mid-century modern home in Hammond Wood have plenty of places to go when seeking fun and adventure. Silver Spring, Bethesda and Chevy Chase are all to the south, offering upscale dining and shopping. Or go a few more miles to Downtown Washington, DC for a night out in the nation’s capital! To learn more about homes for sale in Hammond Wood, call Andre Perez at District Partners, (202) 798-3600.
