Editor’s note: This story, originally published at 5:10 p.m. on March 4, 2025, was updated at 4:30 p.m. on March 5, 2025, to correct the date of the April community visioning meeting. It is on April 8, not April 18.
Rockville residents will have the opportunity to share thoughts, ideas and visions for the future of the historic King Farm Farmstead Wednesday night at the first of four community meetings hosted by the city.
The first meeting will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Saddle Ridge Community Center, 300 Saddle Ridge Circle.
The remaining in-person meetings will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on March 25 at the Glenview Mansion at 603 Edmonston Drive and April 8 at the Twinbrook Community Recreation Center at 12920 Twinbrook Parkway. A virtual meeting will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on April 22.
Community members can also share comments on the project in an online survey.
Tara Stewart, the director of Recreation and Parks for the city of Rockville told Bethesda Today on Tuesday that she was excited to move forward with the King Farm Farmstead project and capture feedback from residents.
“Everything that we do is supported by the residents through their tax dollars so it is important that their voices are at the table and that we are responsive to what the community sees as the needs for [the farmstead’s buildings] and its uses,” Stewart said.
History of the farmstead
The story of the King Farm Farmstead — from its establishment in 1822 to its development as a bustling neighborhood to its designation as a historic district — stands as a testament to the city’s agricultural history.
In 1822, Andrew Graff acquired 122 acres along Frederick Road where generations of the Graff family cultivated the land for more than a century, according to Peerless Rockville, a nonprofit historical society.
In 1924 W. Lawson King bought the property and purchased three nearby farms to create “Irvington Farm.” The King family expanded the farm’s operations extensively during their ownership and the farm “boasted the world’s largest Holstein [cow] herd and sold cows from its champion stock internationally,” the Peerless Rockville website states. Irvington Farm was also the largest milk producer in the area at that time.
After Lawson King’s death in 1985, the 430-acre property was eventually sold to developers and in 1995 the City of Rockville annexed the property. In 2006 the land was designated as a historic district.
Where cows once grazed, single-family homes, townhomes and apartment buildings have been constructed.
The farmstead’s “core,” consisting of eight buildings on seven acres, has been preserved and has undergone rehabilitation by the city, according to the King Farm Farmstead Project’s website. The buildings include a two-story main house built in 1914, a garage, two dairy barns, a horse barn and two tenant houses. According to a 2014 assessment of the site, several of the buildings suffer from moisture damage, wood rot, foundation damage and structural issues. In addition, most of the buildings are not ADA compliant, which poses a challenge for public use, and the utilities in the buildings are outdated or nonfunctional and will likely need replacement or significant upgrades.
Since the assessment of the site, the city has restored the facades of the diary barns and installed water and sewer infrastructure for the main house and barns, according to the project website. Due to the site being a designated historic district, all future renovations must align with standards set by the Rockville Historic District Commission.
Currently, the farmstead is utilized by residents in several ways including a community garden plot, a picnic pavilion and an open grassy lawn area, according to Stewart
A future master plan
In recent years, the city has been working to rehabilitate and repurpose the farmstead. The next step is to hear from Rockville residents about their vision for the farm’s future. In 2017 a King Farm Farmstead Taskforce laid out its vision for the property and in 2022 the city explored viable reuse options through a real estate and market analysis by Partners for Economic Success, an urban economic consulting firm, according to the project website.
The community engagement initiative, which will involve public meetings, open houses, workshops and online surveys, is part of a larger master planning effort to determine the adaptive reuse of the buildings on the property and future uses of the site. Within the project, the city aims to not only preserve and adapt the site’s historic structures for community use, but to explore cultural and recreational programming for visitors and to integrate the site into the region’s park system.
Stewart says she hopes to see the farmstead site “maintain the historic character of the buildings” and for the spaces to be widely used by the community for classes, meetings or rentals.
“The bounds are limitless at this point in terms of ideas,” Stewart said.
The city ultimately aims to create community-based recommendations for the mayor and city council to inform their decisions for the master plan for the property, according to the city. In June, the city will host concept refinement meetings, but dates have not yet been determined.
At the meetings, the city and its consultant team will showcase several different concepts for the farmstead based on community input, Stewart said. Once the city has received feedback on the concepts, the project team will present its recommendations to the mayor and council.
According to the project’s website, the city plans for the mayor and council to finalize decisions and planning for the farmstead by 2026.
