By KATELYNN WINEBRENNER
Courtesy of Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission
The county’s Planning Board had recommended that the county council approve the designation, which College Park Restorative Justice Commission Chair Maxine Gross requested last August.
“We do owe it to Lakeland to do everything we can to work toward restorative justice,” County Councilmember Eric C. Olson (District 3) said at a hearing on the request.
Gross owns one of the homes and co-owns the other two with her sister, Delphine Gross. The county found that all three have uniquely historic significance to Lakeland and the county.
Gross solely owns the home at 5011 Navahoe Street, which once belonged to Nancy Tabbs, a relative of Gross’s. In 1935, Tabbs, a single mother whose maiden name was Gross, hired Romulus Cornelius Archer Jr., the second Black architect licensed in the District, to design her home.
The county’s planning board staff recommended historic designation for
the property because it reflects Lakeland’s development, a family’s heritage and the “entrepreneurial spirit and innovative mindset of Black women during a period of intense racial segregation.”
The second home is the Elwood and Wilmer Gross house at 5110 Pierce Avenue, named after the former owners, Maxine Gross’ parents. Gross grew up in the house, which her father and other Lakelanders built in the early 1960s. Both of her parents were involved in the community, and Gross’ father was once the president of the Lakeland Civic Association.
County planning board staff said the home reflects the development of Lakeland and the influence of the Gross family on the community.
The third home, at 8002 54th Avenue, once was owned by George Henry and Agnes Gross, Maxine Gross’ paternal grandparents. The grandparents paid for this property with money they received from the county after it demolished their previous home in the early 1970s to build the new, desegregated Paint Branch Elementary School.
In their recommendation, the county planning board staff called the 54th Avenue home a testament to the community’s “resilience … in the face of discriminatory public policy” during the city’s urban renewal efforts through the mid-1960s.
