Glenview Mansion (Rockville)

Glenview Mansion is a historic home and surrounding property located at Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland. The house is a 1926 Neo-Classical Revival style house on 65 acres (260,000 m2) of landscaped ground. The five-part mansion incorporates the remnants of the 1838 house called "Glenview." Since 1957, the house and grounds have been owned by the City of Rockville, and are used for various civic, cultural and social events, and is known as Rockville Civic Center Park.[2] The house also includes the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery.

Not to be confused with Glenview Mansion.
Glenview Mansion
Glenview Mansion, July 2009
Glenview Mansion (Rockville) is located in Maryland
Glenview Mansion (Rockville)
Glenview Mansion (Rockville) is located in the United States
Glenview Mansion (Rockville)
Location603 Edmonston Dr., Rockville, Maryland
Coordinates39°05′11″N 77°07′45″W
Area65 acres (26 ha)
Built1926 (1926)
ArchitectPorter, Irwin S.; Lockie, Joseph A.; James H. Small III (Landscape Architect)
Architectural styleClassical Revival
NRHP reference No.07001073[1]
Added to NRHPOctober 10, 2007

History

Catherine and Richard Johns Bowie, the original owners of the property, purchased 500 acres of land that the mansion now stands on and had their slaves clear its forests to grow corn, wheat, rye, potatoes, and hay as well as raise cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs. In 1838, their slaves built a two-story house on the highest point of their property and named it Glenview. Despite being pro-Union, Bowie was a slave owner and an anti-abolitionist. The Glenview house and farm were built by around two dozen enslaved Black people. The enslaved Black people who worked at Glenview were freed between 1862 and 1864, due to the abolition of slavery.[3]

Glenview remained in the Bowie family until 1904, then changed hands several times before 1917, when it was purchased by Irene and William Smith. In 1923 architects Lochie and Porter were hired to transform Glenview from a farm to a fashionable country estate designed for entertaining. The original house the Bowies built still survives in the center of the much larger Neoclassical mansion.

After Irene Lyon's death in 1950, her husband James Alexander Lyon began selling off parcels of the estate for housing developments, eventually selling the mansion to the Montgomery County Historical Society in 1954. In 1957, the City of Rockville purchased Glenview and 28 acres for $125,000 (~$935,288 in 2021) to become a civic center.[4]

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.[1]

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. Anne Cissel; Judy Christensen; Mary Fitch (April 1986). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Glen View" (PDF). Maryland Historical Trust. Retrieved 2016-01-01.
  3. "History of Glenview Mansion". City of Rockville. Retrieved 2023-05-24.
  4. "Glenview Mansion". Peerless Rockville. Retrieved 2015-11-18.


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