Woodmont Country Club

By 1921, the Town and Country Club, founded by members of Washington's German–Jewish community, had reached a membership of 250 and started looking for more spacious quarters outside of the District. What they settled on was “an old, run-down country house, complete with a tuneless grand piano” – Winona in Bethesda. The house and land were purchased from Walter G., Beverly K., and Agnes Peter, three of the children of Armistead and Martha Peter.

Extensive renovations turned the Georgian brick house into a white columned mansion and the surrounding land into a nine-hole golf course (expanded to eighteen holes by playing each hole from two sets of tees). The double row of sycamore trees near Rockville Pike still marks the entrance drive to the clubhouse. In 1930 the club officially became Woodmont Country Club, the name by which it had been informally known.

The Club suffered from a loss of members and income during the Depression and World War II. Then, just as it was beginning to enjoy the post-War prosperity (it had leased an additional ten acres from a fourth Peter heir, George Freeland Peter, to expand the golf course to eighteen holes and had made plans to renovate the club house), the Federal Government announced its intention to purchase the property for NIH in 1948. The Club relocated five miles north on Rockville Pike, where it still remains, while the Bethesda property and house were operated as the public Glenbrook Golf Course until 1955. Ground was broken for the National Library of Medicine in 1959.

Post-War Club Activities