Developed by Duball, LLC, the building's 46 units will range from the $600,000s to penthouses that start at $2.3 million. The Stonehall is located at 8302 Woodmont, but the sales office is currently located at 7706 Woodmont. It has arguably the most distinctive and nicest looking architecture of the post-recession buildings in downtown Bethesda so far, especially with that porte-cochère front entrance.
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| The building name in gold lettering, a nice touch |
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| Fancy chandelier under the porte-cochère entranceway |
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| Glimpse of the lobby |
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| Future ground-level retail space, rumored to be a bank or restaurant |
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| There's an NIH Shuttle stop right out front, and a Bethesda Circulator stop on the next block, as well as Metrobus and Ride On in front of the building |
The retail space design is so uninviting, especially with the huge blank wall mass towards the rest of Battery Lane.
ReplyDeletethe circulator stop is actually not there. it is near the parking garage entrance.
ReplyDeleteI learned that the other day. Waited in front of Stonehall (on the south side) and the driver was kind enough to stop and pick me up and then told me the stop was actually around the corner.
Delete5:56 AM is correct. The nearest stop is in front of the parking garage on Woodmont Avenue.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the point of the video in Image #2?
Image #11 looks like Photoshop gone horribly wrong.
5:56: I thinking of the NIH Shuttle, I guess. Will correct.
ReplyDelete6:01: Same could be said of your County ID badge photo.
ReplyDeleteIn your photos, the buildings are always at these weird random angles.
ReplyDeleteDo you ever, um, compose your photos?
Ah give Robert a break, he is a blogger, not a photographer. Other publications have professionals that take the photos for the author.
DeleteI am very excited to see this building completed. That intersection has been a nightmare every Saturday.
ReplyDeleteIt's even worse than I recalled. I walked by this morning.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the entry to retail going to be? The grade drops down so much that the first floor is elevated quite a bit on Battery Lane. The windows are all elevated quite a bit from street level with stonework below each one. From street level you're looking at the torsos of people inside.
The blank stone wall to the left towards Battery is a huge inactive mass with a steel door.
Then around the corner down the hill towards the side of the building it's a huge bulky mass of blank wall, loading dock, blank wall, garage door, etc.
Yuck.
6:38: Only an idiot like you would call these "weird angles." What a joke. Get a life, old sport.
ReplyDelete7:08: People read this blog for the photos as much as for the text. There's no other website with the comprehensive and high quality photography of Bethesda as you find here.
I am 7:08 and was defending you. No need to get defensive yourself.
DeleteComprehensive, absolutely! High quality, questionable. But then again as I pointed out, it's not expected nor necessary for a hyper local blog such as this. Keep up the good work!
"Get a life, old sport."
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that Jay Gatsby never said that.
Please don't call us idiots if we don't like your photos. That's just rude.
ReplyDeleteInked stained legacy print media folks still think less photos are better. Presumably because of the cost of extra print pages? Doesn't apply to digital, my friend.
ReplyDeleteNo one is nostalgic for the old days of getting one small low resolution black & white photo in the Gazette.
6:13: "A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention."
ReplyDelete-Herbert A. Simon
"Metrobus and Ride On in front of the building"
ReplyDeleteYep, just what someone who just paid $2 million for a condo needs. I wonder how long it will be before the owners petition to have the stops moved because of the crowd it attracts. Welcome to the new Woodmont Triangle.
What happened to the great photo review someone posted?
ReplyDeleteI saw that before too. It was a good comment. Not sure what comment policy it was violating that Robert justified deleting it.
DeleteThere is a serious amount of censorship from the author that being questions of ethics into the conversation.
DeleteIf this the kind of person we want in office?
Delete@ 9:33 AM - I am the deletee from Monday night. I will recreate the post to the best of my memory. Then save, as I should have previously.
ReplyDeletePhoto #1: No clear focal point or center of mass. Both top and bottom corners of left side of building cut off. Traffic light in photo is awkward.
Photo #2 (VIDEO) - Shows all of 10 feet of forward movement. Weird bouncing movement, then camera shifts up and to left slightly at end of video - why? What was added by making this a video, instead of a photo?
Photo #3 - Horizontal and vertical alignment completely random. "STONEHALL" sign is focal point but it is poorly aligned. Central vertical line should have passed through the middle of this sign and the apex of the arch and aligned with middle posts of those balcony railings.
Photo #4 - Horizontal and vertical alignment completely random. Lamp is focal point but it is poorly aligned.
Photo #5 - Horizontal and vertical alignment completely random."8302" is focal point but it is poorly aligned - why was this not shot head-on? Poor lighting - "8302" is blurred and there are too many reflections.
Photo #6 - Horizontal and vertical alignment completely random. Emphasizes "turret" but this is poorly aligned and bottom right corner is cut off. Should have been vertical element, and mass of building should have been properly centered.
Photo #7 - This is one of the better photos - clear focal point which is the space between the lines of the Stonehall and the other buildings on Woodmont Avenue. But vertical alignment is poor and lighting could have been better - Flats 8300 is cut off.
Photo #8 - Focal point is corner balconies but these are neither centered nor properly aligned vertically.
Photo # 9 - Poor location of rounded window - not centered, not properly aligned vertically or horizontally, cut off on left side, should have been positioned farther back in picture for best proportion.
Photo #10 - Another "turret" shot. Poorly aligned and bottom right corner is cut off. Should have been centered along vertical element of turret. Bottom left corner is cut off.
Photo #11 - Poor contrast, poor sense of depth - floor of room behind door seems to go uphill.
Photo #12 - Another "turret" shot. Vertical and horizontal alignment, centering better than the previous two, but left side of building is cut off and the traffic lights on right are awkward.
Photo #13 - Horizontal and vertical alignment completely random. Would have been better if the angles of the horizontal edges had been the same. Top left corner is cut off. Would have been much better if taken head-on.
Photo #14 - This is the one photo which actually relates to the subject of the article -
the reopening of the sidewalk along Battery Lane - good! Curb flows into bottom left corner - this is very good. Also good is the Circulator bus on the left. However this photo is centered on the lamppost, fire hydrant, and telephone pole, which is not so good. Also, more of the Stonehall should have been shown for better context.
Summary comments: #2, #4, #5, #9, #11 should not have been included at all. They were crappy to the point of being embarrassing. And between the three turret shots (#6, #10, #12), at most one of these should have been included... but none of the three are really that good. Both of the street photos (#7, #14) were better than the other 12.
Given that the article was about the reopening of the sidewalks along Battery Lane and Woodmont Avenue, the highest priority should have been those sidewalks - one or two pictures would have been fine. A good "turret" shot, a properly aligned shot of the "STONEHALL" sign, and a head-on shot of the Woodmont Avenue facade might have been good. Anything over five photos for this article is TL;DR.
6:22: Only someone being paid to comment - or insane - would put that kind of time in once, much less twice, to type all of that.
ReplyDeleteThe real question is, if my photos are so bad, why is one of my pictures of downtown Bethesda on display in a bank, and you're hunched over a computer in the dark taking shots at people who are actually out there doing something?
If they're so bad, why do I keep getting requests from businesses, websites and even utility companies like Washington Gas to use my photos?
You sound like an idiot, old sport.
You put so much effort into slamming the county council - are you being paid to do so?
Delete"Only someone being paid to comment - or insane - would put that kind of time in once, much less twice, to type all of that."
ReplyDeleteThat's what your readers say to themselves when they read your argle-bargle about the "MoCo Cartel".
The real question is, if my photos are so bad, why is one of my pictures of downtown Bethesda on display in a bank...?"
"[Y]ou're hunched over a computer in the dark taking shots at people who are actually out there doing something?"
Sounds like your rants about the "MoCo Cartel". Aren't most of your articles and comments written at night? And do you hunch over your computer when you type them?
"If they're so bad, why do I keep getting requests from businesses, websites and even utility companies like Washington Gas to use my photos?"
Which bank? How many businesses? How many photos did Washington Gas request? Did you get paid for any of these?
I learned a bunch from the commentary. Thanks 6:22.
ReplyDeleteI as well. Thanks, 6:22! Nice to learn from photography pros.
Delete3:50 AM, 4:46 AM - You're welcome! I saved the comment this time - I am ready if it becomes another victim in Robert Dyer's War on Free Speech.
ReplyDeleteI LOL'd at your handle!
DeleteDoes one have to live with their mother in order to use the term old sport in such a condescending manner? Serious question because you're the only one that uses old sport so condescendingly and you're the only person I know that is rumored to live with mommy.
ReplyDelete