Originally published in 2021. Courtesy Susan Soderberg of The Germantown Historical Society.
It was a sad day in September 1990 when the last of the artist residents said goodbye to their commune home on Frederick Road in Germantown. They left behind their gardens, their lap swimming pool, their treehouse with the triple-chair zipline, their annual masquerade balls; and they took with them their art, their music and their joie de vivre. But the house, the magnificent 125 year-old house with its wrap-around porch and huge fireplace, was not to be torn down– it would be reborn in another location.
This house called Londonderry has a long history made even more fascinating by the remarkable dissimilarity of its tenants. It was built in 1862 by the Reverend James Sebastian Hamilton Henderson, pastor of Neelsville Presbyterian Church. The property had been a gift to his wife, Roseanna Jane Neel Henderson, from her father Joseph Neel, for whom Neelsville is named. Joseph had named the tract of land Londonderry after the town he had come from in Ireland. The Hendersons raised seven children in the house and at their deaths it went to two of their sons, Joseph and Theodore. Joseph added a wing to the house when he married.
The brothers expanded the original 250 acres to 400 acres and made it into a very prosperous farm. It continued to be farming by Joseph’s sons after his death until 1929 when it was sold to Harry Hoskinson, a wealthy businessman from Washington, D.C. Mr. Hoskinson moved the house back from the road and did some extensive remodeling.
In 1961 Harry’s son sold the property to Philip Milestone. The house was then rented to the Sisters of the Holy Cross for use as a convalescent home for aging nuns while the land was farmed by Roger Burdette.
In 1971 the house became a group home for artistic professionals, dancers, teachers, scientists and dramatists. In 1980 this group began holding an annual masquerade ball in the fall. As many as 100 people in a fantastic variety of costumes would slide down the zipwire and join in the dancing or just listen to the live band. It was quite the quintessential party in Germantown.
The house was listed in “Old Homes and History of Montgomery County, Maryland” by Roger Brooke Farquhar in 1952. Nevertheless, the house was denied approval as an official Montgomery County historic site because of the changes that Hoskinson had made to the original dwelling.
In 1990 the planned Milestone Mall began to be developed and the property was sold to Aldre, Inc. and the house was to be demolished to make way. But John and Amy St. Angelo had other plans for Londonderry. They purchased it for $1 from developer Aris Madirossian and had the entire three-story structure moved a mile and a half across the fields to rest in a plot of the newly formed community of Greenridge Acres on the north side of Ridge Road. The St. Angelos had already restored the historic Waring/Crawford House in Germantown and were eager for a new challenge.
And there it sits today on Morning Star Drive, its size and distinctive architecture making it stand out from the surrounding tract houses like the morning star in the fading twinklings of the dawn sky. An Applebee’s restaurant occupies its former site.
