Rockville has a new National Historic Landmark

Rockville, MD— On Wednesday, January 13, 2021, the Secretary of the Interior designated Frieda's Cottage as a National Historic Landmark for its association with Dr. Frieda Fromm-Reichmann.

Dr. Frieda Fromm-Reichmann (1889–1957) was a psychiatrist internationally renowned for her pioneering contribution to the treatment of schizophrenia. She made history as the paramount figure at Chestnut Lodge, the premier center in the 20th century for the psychoanalytically-oriented treatment of schizophrenia.

Dr. Fromm-Reichmann was internationally prominent by 1935, when she fled Nazi Germany and emigrated to the United States to continue her work. Several hospitals and institutions offered her positions, but she was persuaded to come to Chestnut Lodge in 1936 by Dr. Dexter Bullard, who promised to build her a home on the grounds. The house was designed by Washington architect Walter G. Peter and constructed by Rockville builder Franklin H. Karn.

As Chestnut Lodge's director of psychotherapy, Dr. Fromm-Reichmann’s cottage housed her office where she saw the majority of her patients. During her tenure, she was instrumental in transforming the institution into an internationally recognized mental health care facility that treated patients based on a philosophy that mental illness is treatable by a combination of psychoanalysis and occupational therapy. She worked at Chestnut Lodge until her death in 1957 at the age of 67.

It is an extraordinary honor for Peerless Rockville, who restored and continues to care for this special historic property, to have it designated a National Historic Landmark. It is our and the City of Rockville’s privilege to be associated with Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, a trail-blazing woman in the field of medicine when there were very few women. She transformed Chestnut Lodge into a renowned mental health institution, and ultimately changed how psychiatrists treat severe mental illness.

Peerless Rockville is tremendously proud of our restoration of Frieda’s Cottage, undertaken in 2009. The careful restoration of original materials, fixtures, and the plank flooring was accompanied by appropriate repairs to the slate roof, wood siding, and chimney. Extreme care was taken to respect the period of significance aligned with Dr. Fromm-Reichmann’s residency and to retain all possible architectural elements and character defining features in the interior as well as the exterior of the structure. The cottage thus retains a high degree of integrity in location, workmanship, feeling and association. While Chestnut Lodge was tragically lost, the Lodge’s open surroundings are undisturbed as a passive City of Rockville park that thus preserves the route Frieda and her patients traveled between the cottage and the Lodge building.

For more information, please visit PeerlessRockville.org or call 301-762-0096.