O’Dea House
The O’Dea House is a historic home located in Berwyn Heights, Prince George’s County, Maryland, United States. The house was built in 1888 to a sketchy design and is a one-story frame dwelling in the Queen Anne style. Most notable of its features are the three-story octagonal tower and a variety of decorative surface finishes. The O’Dea House is notable for its connection to the development of Berwyn Heights, originally Charlton Heights, one of the first streetcar suburbs of Washington, D.C., and for its architectural character. Beginning in the 1870s, the area northeast of Washington was the scene of active and continuous development as the city’s population grew and railroad suburbs such as Berwyn Heights gradually grew and expanded around it. The O’Dea House is one of the homes built by the Charlton Heights Improvement Company to encourage development in its new community. Typically, these houses built by companies were often mail order houses or sample books. The sample O’Dea house is taken from a design published in 1888 by Robert W. Schoppell. The O’Dea house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. It was sold in 1939 to Lawrence and Alice O’Dea and bears their name.
