A Little Bethesda History
from William Offutt's Bethesda - A Social History
"The Warren brothers, Monroe and Robert
Bates, best known for their pioneering, luxury, co-op
apartments, were among the big bungalow builders of the '20s
in the fifty-seven-acre development, which they, but almost
no one else, called 'Leland.' The Chevy Chase Club had
purchased most of that land when negotiations for the Dodge
tract seemed at an impasse and then sold to the Warrens at a
profit when it was no longer needed.
In the mid-'20s the brothers built
Bethesda's first shopping center, a row of stores on the
east side of Wisconsin Avenue between Leland and Walsh
Streets with a vaguely English-colonial, Tudor-revival
appearance.
They dedicated the front part of their
property for the old highway's widening. The shop roofs were
steeply pitched, painted boards crisscrossed the stucco
façades and the doorways were set back into shallow arches.
It was on e of the first developer-planned, neighborhood
shopping centers in the region."
