Aberdeen, MD
Area planned: 26.53 acres. Housing planned: Detached houses, 65 families; Convertible dormitories 60 persons.
Housing constructed: Detached houses, 65 families; row houses,
3 families. Total, 68 families
1919 excerpt describing the design features:
"The site selected was a tract of about 26 U acres of rolling, open cornfields, sloping from the Post Road to a small brook which runs into the bay nearby. The soil is gravelly clay, with little or no top
soil and no ledge near the surface. The Post Road is an important thoroughfare between Baltimore and Philadelphia. The county
road is the main vehicular route from the village and freight yards to the proving ground. Since greater width was needed on this road, a second 18-
foot pavement was added, with a 3o-foot strip of grass between, which we have called Church Green. . . . A notable characteristic of the houses at Aberdeen
is that in the complete design only three types
are used. The convertible houses, as illustrated,
planned for development into 3 and 4 room houses,
were so laid out that with the insertion of temporary
partitions they made practical boarding houses.
Because of the early approach of peace, two of the
six groups of this type were finished up at once as
four-room houses.
If the central structure of the three dormitory
convertible buildings facing Church Green had been
set back 2 feet (shallow rear lots would have prevented
more) a far more agreeable arrangement
would have resulted, breaking the monotony of
the present straight line.
The two types of detached houses with a few
variations of roof, form, and exterior material and
the use of rights and lefts produce an entirely sufficient
variety of appearance besides being good
individually. The restrained variations in set
back on the Post Road and Osborne Road are very
agreeable"
