Westmoreland Hills is one of six communities represented by the Westmoreland Citizens Association, which has operated since 1935 on voluntary $50 dues.
Westmoreland Hills is best understood through a single institution rather than a single plat. Albert Walker owned most of the land and sold parcels from the 1930s onward; Charles Berry Jr. was the prominent developer of the houses. Roughly 500 detached homes were built here, mainly between the 1930s and the 1960s, which is why the streets read as a layered sequence of eras rather than a uniform tract. Overlaying all of it is the Westmoreland Citizens Association, operating since 1935 and covering roughly 1,000 households across six separate communities — Westmoreland Hills among them, alongside Westgate, Overlook, Spring Hill, Westhaven and Yorktown Village.
The association is voluntary and its dues are $50; it runs a community building known as the Little House. This is not a homeowners association: no assessment runs with the land, there is no architectural review committee and no covenant is enforced against an owner by the group. What it does provide is a continuous institutional voice across six neighborhoods on land-use matters — which is a different and, over ninety years, a fairly durable kind of influence. A practical implication for buyers: the association whose newsletter and positions you encounter may be speaking for a much wider area than the plat your deed names, so ask which of the six communities an address actually sits in.
The division of roles is worth keeping straight because listings tend to compress it. Albert Walker held most of the ground and released parcels from the 1930s; Charles Berry Jr. is the developer name attached to the construction. The builder attribution and the roughly 500-home count both come from Washington Post reporting rather than from county plat records, so both should be verified against the recorded plats before anyone treats them as settled figures. That is not a hedge for its own sake — the difference between a Post feature and a plat matters when you are arguing a comparable.
Walker also headed the Wood Acres Construction Corporation, which built the neighboring Wood Acres subdivision from 1939 to 1959. That is a genuine cross-neighborhood thread rather than a coincidence of geography, and it is useful context when comparing the two: Wood Acres was built out by a single construction company to a consistent product of brick colonials, while Westmoreland Hills accumulated across three decades with more variation in what stands on the lots. Same principal, two very different results on the ground.
With no covenant regime and no historic designation documented on the neighborhood, Montgomery County zoning and permitting is the operative constraint — Bethesda is unincorporated, so there is no town layer. Chapter 55, the tree canopy law, engages when a project requires a sediment control permit, which brings in teardowns and major additions. Chapter 24A historic review applies only to properties on the county's Master Plan for Historic Preservation, and Bethesda has individually designated sites outside any district, so confirm status by address with Montgomery Planning. Accessory dwelling units are permitted under the post-2019 rules with size capped by the smallest of three tests and licensing required. Schools are assigned by Montgomery County Public Schools by address; verify at the address, and note the high school boundaries adopted March 26, 2026 phase in from 2027-28.
Westmoreland Hills sits within Bethesda — that guide covers the zoning, permitting and site constraints that apply across the wider area.
Artur can confirm what applies to a specific address here — lot, zoning, association documents and school assignment — before you write an offer.
