The town of Garrett Park is bounded by the MARC train tracks to the northeast, Rock Creek Park to the southeast, Kenilworth Avenue on the northwest side, and the Parkside Condominiums to the southwest. The ZIP code is 20896.
History
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad built a station in Garrett Park in 1893, and the village was planned and developed around it as a suburb of Washington, D.C. It was named after John W. Garrett, who was a president of the B&O Railroad. Garrett Park was incorporated as a town in 1898 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
Amenities
Garrett Park is surrounded by public transportation options. The Brunswick Line of the MARC train still stops in the neighborhood, buses run regularly on Strathmore Avenue, and the Grosvenor-Strathmore station on the Metro’s Red Line is close by. The heart of the town is Penn Place, a former general store in the historic district that now houses the post office, town offices and archives, an art gallery and the popular Black Market Bistro restaurant. Locals enjoy hiking and biking trails in Rock Creek Park, and arts and entertainment at The Music Center at Strathmore, which is within walking distance. There are two playgrounds in the community, as well as tennis/pickleball courts and a swim club. Young residents attend Garrett Park Elementary School, Tilden Middle School and Walter Johnson High School.
Vibe
You know you’re in Garrett Park when you see the old-fashioned streetlamps on a stretch of Strathmore Avenue. Quiet streets weave past well-kept historic homes beneath a dense canopy of leaves. The vast variety of trees is so important here that the town was designated as an arboretum in 1977. There is no home mail delivery in the town, so residents connect at the post office where they fetch their mail. The neighborhood is very social, with semiannual progressive dinners, a July Fourth parade, Halloween festivities, and even a film society that screens movies several times a year at the town hall.
Housing Stock
Of the 375 houses in Garrett Park, the Victorians get a lot of attention, but there are home styles from every era since the town’s inception. Sears catalog bungalows, cottages, farmhouses, midcentury split levels and new contemporary homes all add to the eclectic charm of the neighborhood.
This story appears in the May/June edition of Bethesda Magazine.