During her first visit to the United States as a monarch, Queen Elizabeth II made a rare unplanned visit to a home in University Park.

The date was Oct. 19, 1957, and the Queen and Prince Philip were attending a football game at the University of Maryland.

Next, they would tour a Giant supermarket on Queens Chapel Road before returning to the White House, where they were staying with President Eisenhower.

Exactly what happened next is not formally recorded, but multiple neighborhood sources vouched for by neighbor George Calcott, a retired history professor, say that the Queen decided to make a stop in University Park.

One account is that Joseph Deckman, who was one of the university’s representatives with the Queen that day, asked if she would like to see a typical American house and offered to let her tour his two-story brick Colonial at 4310 Clagett Rd.

Another version of the story is that Deckman and others thought the stadium bathrooms were not fit for a royal and offered to let her use the facilities at the top of the stairs of his house.

The home’s current owner, George Wilkinson, who is British, told the Hyattsville Wire, that either way it was a rarity for the Queen, who did not regularly visit people in their homes.

“A lot of people visited her home,” she said, referring to Buckingham Palace. “But it was pretty rare for her to visit someone else’s.”

No photographs have been found from the stop, but neighbors recounted standing on their lawn to watch the row of stately cars pull up for the Queen’s brief tour, and for years afterward local kids referred to it as the “Queen’s house.”

Based on Calcott’s research, Wilkinson, who is a graphic designer, was able to order a blue historical marker like the ones found all over London to commemorate the visit.

Wilkinson says her parents bought the house in 2006 after moving from England to the United States and had no idea of its ties to the Queen until Calcott stopped by for a visit one day.

“He just assumed that they had bought it because the Queen had once been there,” she told the Wire.

Her mother later participated in a recreation of the visit for a University Park historical celebration, and Wilkinson, who bought the house from her parents in 2017, threw a party replete with a cardboard cutout of the Queen this past June to commemorate the 70th anniversary of her taking the throne.

In reflecting on the Queen’s death, Wilkinson said she was surprised how emotional she felt when she heard the news.

“She was just this constant presence in our lives,” she said.

Support the Wire and Community Journalism
Make a one-time donation or become a regular supporter here.