Monterey Historic District

Blue Ridge Summit's Monterey district is a cluster of late nineteenth-century summer houses, inns, a church, a library, a club and a golf course laid out along Charmian Road, Charmian Lane, Clermont Avenue and Monterey Circle. The area grew from an inn or way station at the junction of Charmian Road and Monterey Lane, which dates to 1810 and sat on the old Baltimore-Pittsburgh turnpike. After the Monterey Land Company bought the Monterey Springs farm in 1885, it created a planned summer colony with winding lanes, low stone walls, and houses sited for mountain views. Its covenants banned alcohol outside the inn properties and prohibited detached privies, stores, factories and dwellings costing less than $2,000. Houses built between 1890 and 1906 show Queen Anne, Georgian Revival, Shingle and Italianate forms. The district is significant as an intact example of a Victorian resort community, shaped by the railroad excursion trade.