The O'Dea House, is a historic home located in Berwyn Heights,

Prince George's County Prince George's County (often shortened to PG County or PG) is located in the U.S. state of Maryland bordering the eastern portion of Washington, D.C. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 967,201, making it the second-most populous ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The house was built in 1888 from a pattern book design and is a -story frame Queen Anne-style dwelling. Most notable of its features is the three-story octagonal tower and varied ornamental surface coverings. The O'Dea House is significant for its association with the development of Berwyn Heights, originally Charlton Heights, an early

streetcar suburb A streetcar suburb is a residential community whose growth and development was strongly shaped by the use of streetcar lines as a primary means of transportation. Such suburbs developed in the United States in the years before the automobile, when ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

and for its architectural character. Beginning in the 1870s, the area northeast of Washington was the scene of active and continuous development as the population of the city increased and railroad suburbs such as Berwyn Heights gradually grew and expanded around it. The O'Dea House is one of the houses erected by the Charlton Heights Improvement Company to spur development of its new community. In typical fashion, these company-built houses were often mail order or pattern book houses. The pattern for the O'Dea House is from an 1888 published design by Robert W. Shoppell. The O'Dea House was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1987. It was sold in 1939 to Lawrence and Alice O'Dea, and bears their name.Engineering record
''Historic American Buildings Survey''. Retrieved: 2010-10-04.

References

External links

*, including photo in 1986, at Maryland Historical Trust website
O'Dea House, 5804 Ruatan Street, Berwyn Heights, Prince George's, MD
at the

Historic American Buildings Survey The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

(HABS) {{National Register of Historic Places in Maryland Berwyn Heights, Maryland Houses in Prince George's County, Maryland Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maryland Queen Anne architecture in Maryland Houses completed in 1888 Historic American Buildings Survey in Maryland National Register of Historic Places in Prince George's County, Maryland