Polychrome Historic District

Montgomery County, United States

Freely accessible

Public space — no opening hours to check.

Strollie cannot guarantee access — always check before you travel.

Find out more

In Silver Spring's Four Corners neighborhood, the Polychrome Historic District comprises five Art Deco houses built by architect John Joseph Earley in 1934 and 1935. Earley employed an innovative construction method using precast concrete panels with colored aggregate attached to conventional wood frames, creating striking multicolored facades with Art Deco ornamentation. Each two-inch-thick panel was factory-produced, embodying Earley's interest in mass-production techniques for affordable, small-scale housing—a vision aligned with Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian house movement. The ensemble demonstrates an early modernist approach to prefabrication and demonstrates Earley's commitment to democratizing home construction through industrial methods and materials.