It’s been a sorority house, a military rehabilitation center and an office building.
It’s been full of life. It’s been abandoned. It’s been brought back to life.
One thing the pagoda in Forest Glen has never been is ordinary. The Asian-style tiered structure at 2801 Linden Lane on the National Park Seminary lot is more than 100 years old. After a spotty history of use and disuse, the pagoda has a new future — as a home.
“When you see a Japanese pagoda in the middle of Silver Spring, you think, ‘OK, what is this?’ ” said Bonnie Rosenthal, longtime member of Save Our Seminary, a group that has worked to preserve the National Park Seminary property.
The three bedroom, 1,374-square-foot pagoda has been on the market since November for a listing price of $375,000, and Vos said it was just sold to a private buyer.
The pagoda’s empty rooms have gathered dust during the last 20 years that no one has lived there, but the walls seem to whisper more than a century’s worth of stories.
The pagoda was built in the summer of 1905 as part of National Park Seminary, a two-year finishing school for young women. The school was founded by John and Vesta Cassedy, a husband and wife team, in 1894. The Cassedys believed their girls should not just learn from books but the world around them, Rosenthal said. So the educators decided to bring the world to the girls.
