Where We Live: Potowmack Preserve has been developed with nature in mind

By Audrey Hoffer January 9 at 7:30 AM

In a 50-acre hilly enclave shrouded in trees, 10 minutes from the Capital Beltway in Potomac, Md., are 159 houses built more than four decades ago.

Potowmack Preserve is a contemporary place with an antique name, said Raj Barr, president of the homeowners association, who has lived there for 20 years.

The houses were built during the period when landscape architect Ian McHarg wrote Design With Nature, the landmark 1969 book about planning in a natural environment.

In 1970, developer Croyder-Irvin and designers Cimbco Ltd. and Cohen, Haft & Associates fashioned this community of houses taking advantage of the natural setting in southeastern Montgomery County. They protected the woodlands as green buffer zones and placed the houses into the folds of the topography.

Forty-four years ago someone said green is good and built these houses into the texture of the land, keeping the trees so that today the poplars, oaks, sycamores and white pines are 60 to 70 years old, Barr said. It was quite prescient of them to say, Yes, were going to protect the land, save the trees.

Houses were literally built into each lot. The developer didnt bulldoze the site to make it easier to build, said Rande Joiner, another longtime resident who lives with husband Robert Honig, mother Gloria Weissman, border collies Jedi and Skye, and cats Lyra Peabody and Mr. Frodo.

We looked at lots in Potomac 25 years ago and considered building an Acorn or Deck house. We stumbled into Potowmack Preserve, and the rest is history. Weve been here since 1989, she said.

In harmony with wildlife: Sonjae Whang moved there last year with his wife and daughters, now 3 and 5 years old. They were in a townhouse and were looking for a single-family house with a decent-sized yard in a quiet neighborhood with good schools, said Whang, treasurer of the homeowners association. We like living here. Its close enough to D.C. yet feels far enough away.

Community-owned green space is plentiful around the houses, and Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission land borders two sides. Woods surround quarter-acre lots. Theres a sense of harmony and coherence, said Barr.

Read more:
Where We Live: Potowmack Preserve has been developed with nature in mind