tastefully painted signs at Holland Road and another at Sycamore
Road are surrounded by flowers kept fresh by the Evergreen Estates
Association.
EVERGREEN ESTATES
Entering Severna Park, Maryland, eastbound on Benfield
Boulevard you see a sign proclaiming Evergreen Estates across
from the Severna Park High School athletic field. Those
tastefully painted signs at Holland Road and another at Sycamore
Road are surrounded by flowers kept fresh by the Evergreen Estates
Association.
Pin Oak Road links Holland and Sycamore. And that's it. You're at Evergreen Estates.
You wouldn't think these 101 homes are wartime housing. But in a way they are, because of the Cold War and an expanding National Defense. Then you had the National Security Agency moving from Washington to Fort Meade, and Westinghouse hiring more people. Lee & Kornreich developed Evergreen Estates to meet the need for housing.
The author's home was built thinking there was a Cold War. One third of our backyard is occupied by a bomb shelter, a fully functional one with walls of concrete six feet thick. It has a quasi-flat cellar door.
Come on over and hide in our bomb shelter during the next Tornado Alert. Wear hip boots. You'll find out why.
This wonderful bomb shelter collects water, causing me to think people with basements in the neighborhood have a similar problem. It has an electrically powered self-actuating sump pump down there, which ran happily two or three times a week in years gone by. We gave up pumping and unplugged it.
This tribute to the Cold War still waiting for "doomsday" in our backyard has two pipes with four inch diameter protruding three feet above the highest point of the mound. One pipe expels bad air, propelled by a hand-driven centrifugal air pump that sounds like a low-note siren. The other pipe brings in good air.
I always had a question or two. Does the public electrical power (sump pump) fail during nuclear attacks? Is the (incoming) outside air filled with (cough, cough) hazardous particles? And another thing, what would be waiting topside when we emerged?
Evergreen Estates is linked to the National Security Agency in this quote taken from Lee & Kornreich's brochure. They advertised Evergreen Estates as being, "Only 15 minutes from the new N.S.A. at Ft. Meade. A modern community of outstanding homes, strategically located, a truly prestige address. You will find all the comforts and conveniences of metropolitan living, plus the serenity and happiness that comes from a secluded area so kindly endowed by nature." Proximity to NSA was a very important selling point.
We find NSA making the move to Fort Meade in 1957, as reported in the Anne Arundel County History Notes, edited by Mark N. Schatz. That was a year before anybody bought a house in Evergreen Estates, but land had been transferred and blueprints drawn for Evergreen Estates. Lee & Kornreich had bought the property October 3, 1957.
The History Notes continue, "In 1957, amid a good deal of hoopla, the National Security Agency (NSA) arrived at Fort Meade, in the northwest corner of Anne Arundel County. Local newspapers instantly trumpeted NSA as the county's largest single employer, and it was a big event. But no one quite knew precisely what NSA did." They found out in later years.
Moving to Fort Meade from Arlington Hall was expected to be a hardship on many civilian employees, who lived in Virginia and Washington, D.C. The closest place to Fort Meade was Laurel, where houses were selling in the range of $9,000-$11,000, when you could find one.
The other direction was Severna Park and Glen Burnie, where prices were $6,000-$10,000. To the south, in Greenbelt you could occasionally buy a house for $4,700. Columbia had not yet been built.
Lee & Kornreich offered two styles of home in Evergreen estates, the Lido and the York. Of the 101 units, only four or five were the York model.
Mary L. Blake's was the 5th family to move into Evergreen Estates, on October 30, 1958.
Mary says, "Along Benfield was the Model House. A family named Chaplin were in there, not sure about two others. We were the 5th. I don't know who was the very first. We bought the Lido. Basement was $975 extra. The land was $2,000, with the option to pay ground rent of ten dollars a month. After five years, option to purchase."
She goes on to say, "When I read the brochure I thought: Oh, what a bunch of stuff. When we moved here, it felt to me like the end of the world. Couldn't stand it. So unhappy for six months."
Her oldest child had to get on a bus on the corner of Sycamore and Benfield to go to Saint Mary's School in Annapolis. The High School wasn't finished yet.
Mary says, "There were no trees and bushes then. So I had my two younger children stand in the window and watch as we went to the corner and waited for the bus."
Her husband worked at NSA for 36 years. He retired in 1979 and passed on in '84.
They were at Arlington Hall. He was at Nebraska Avenue first and then Fort Meade. They moved here from Falls Church, Virginia, having learned about Evergreen Estates in the Real Estate section of the Washington Post.
Her Husband commuted for a year. It got to be too much, so they started looking for something closer to NSA. Every Sunday they drove around looking.
She says, "It took my husband three hours driving one way from Fort Meade to Falls Church. Just by chance we came upon this area, just by chance. Now it is a nice area. But, you should have seen it back then. We moved here from the Seven Corners area at Falls Church. There were malls with Garfinkles, Woodies, all those beautiful, lovely stores. Harundale Mall was the only thing near here, smaller stores. It wasn't big like I was used to, having Washington, D.C. as our neighbor."
She was from Michigan originally and her husband was from West Virginia. They met at NSA. She quit the Agency when their first child was born, before moving out here.
Mary says, "I had worked there for eight years. We were married three years before our first one came along. I'd had enough of that, that work."
Mrs. Alice Mirenzi remembers the High School where her husband, Joe Mirenzi, worked. They were both from Pittsburgh. Joe went into military service, then to college after that. He was Assistant Principal and Athletic Director when Severna Park High School opened in 1958.
Mr. Mirenzi always wanted to live very near where he was teaching. That's why Joe and Alice decided to live in Evergreen Estates, right across Benfield Road from Severna Park High School. He retired from teaching in 1982 and died in 1990 while on vacation in Florida.
What was the history of this piece of land called Evergreen Estates before houses were built? Dwight E. Hurlbert researched the Land Records in the Anne Arundel Court House, Annapolis, and wrote a short history for the Evergreen Estates Community Association.
The earliest reference he found was October 29, 1845, when Charles R. Stewart deeded some land to Thomas Robinson, which stayed in the family until August 19, 1907, when a parcel was sold to William F. Keuthe and Louis Keuthe.
Louis Seymour Zimmerman purchased the land from Louis Keuthe December 28, 1920. Following the death of Mr. Zimmerman, the land was sold to Aaron Samuelson and Oscar Samuelson on May 10, 1957. Four or five months later, on October 3, 1957, they sold it to Irving S. Lee and Stephen Kornreich of Montgomery County, who developed Evergreen Estates.
Covenants in effect when the Samuelsons took possession were modified. They now required the land not to be used for commercial purposes, no homesite could have a frontage of less than 75 feet at the building line, and no house would be built on a lot having less than 11,250 square feet.
Here is a meaningful comparison. The covenant required no house could cost less than $15,000. The Lido was priced at $16,990 and the York at $19,990. Monthly payments were $88.69 for the Lido and $104.33 for the York. Of course, you had insurance assessments and fees on top of that.
The author's home, a Lido in Evergreen Estates, sold for $42,500 in 1973. Today you might pay in the neighborhood of $175,000 for the same property.
We hope to write a series of these community profiles. Won't you please call the Severna Park Voice (647-9400) with old clippings, maps and names of earliest residents. Thanks. It will help immensely.
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