Chevy Chase Club history

Newlands represented Nevada as a Silver party congressman starting in 1893 and eventually became a Democratic senator.

To attract potential home buyers, the land company built the Chevy Chase Inn on Connecticut Avenue in 1894, and soon, wealthy Washingtonians were using it for summer vacations.

Since hunting was the preferred sport of those early members, the club’s kennels and stables were among the first facilities to be built, in 1895.

In 1897, the Club was able to purchase this 9.36-acre tract on which the Bradley House was situated.

Newlands himself built a house on the northeastern side of Chevy Chase Circle, effectively the gateway to the community, but only lived there until 1898.

By 1901, the first 49 homes were built and within four years, many Chevy Chase residents could be found in the social register.

The hotel couldn’t survive on summer business alone, though, and it was sold in 1903.

In 1909, when a developer sold a few lots near Western Avenue to black families, the Chevy Chase Land Co. filed suit and reacquired the property, keeping the community white.

However, a proposal he put forth in the Democratic National Convention of 1912 taints Newlands’s legacy.

The pie-shaped, 32-acre “Village of Friendship Heights and the Hills,” recognized by the Maryland legislature in 1914, included the Offutt subdivision.

The new owners used it for a women’s school that eventually became known as Chevy Chase Junior College; after the institution closed in 1950, it was bought by the National 4-H Foundation.