Now and Then

From Bonfield’s to Bell’s: The Past is Alive and Well

Left: Photograph courtesy of Frank Bell Right: Photograph by Omar Salinas

Left: Helen and Walter Bonfield, 1996. Right: Jocelyn and Frank Bell, 2007.

For more than 70 years, Bonfield’s Garage was a landmark at 6124 MacArthur Boulevard, exuding the charm of days gone by. If you drive by it now, you’ll notice it’s the main office for Bell Builders, a design/build firm. Yet, the name that’s still attached to the front of the building pays tribute to the life of a man who touched a chord with everybody who met him—the late Walter Bonfield.

Bonfield’s father, a mechanic for Rolls Royce, moved the family out of the District and into the small apartment above the garage in 1927. Like his father, Bonfield was a gifted mechanic who worked on Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s plane during World War II.

After the war, Bonfield returned to the garage and operated it as a repair shop and filling station until 1998. Health problems caused him to retire and sell the building to George Petrides, who owned the Wild Bird Center on MacArthur Boulevard in Cabin John.

After taking possession of the building as-is, Petrides began a mammoth sorting process. Bonfield had a reputation as a guy who could fix anything, an amateur inventor, and a prolific pack rat. Cleaning out the garage, apartment, and the grounds turned into the equivalent of an archaeological dig. The new owner put in calls to automotive memorabilia collectors and set up a garage sale that ran for days. Once the building was cleared out, he started a renovation that lasted two years and cost close to $300,000. The Wild Bird Center stayed in the building for nearly eight years until Petrides sold the building to Frank Bell who had visited the garage as a boy and had many fond memories of the place. “I used to come down here and buy inner tubes,” says Bell. “The place was just a hodge-podge of stuff.”

Bell used his old-school craftsmanship to spruce up the place by installing new hardwood floors of black walnut and lining the walls with heavy wood paneling capped with a line of traditional molding. Original signage still adorns the interior walls of Bell’s office, serving as an homage to what and who came before. The apartment where the family used to live was converted to office space that is now occupied by Bell’s wife Jocelyn, who runs the MERCY Center Foundation—an organization that strives to combat poverty and disease in Lare, Kenya. The Foundation is dedicated to helping this community create a clean water system, establish health care services, and improve the quality of education.

Both of the modern-day owners of the building have made a strong effort to preserve the legacy and the building that belonged to Bonfield. “He deserves to be admired,” says Petrides. The flame was passed to Frank Bell only after he agreed with the previous owner to honor the past. “He knew I was looking towards keeping a small museum to Bonfield,” says Bell. So many lives were touched by Bonfield—the wonderful old guy who ran the station on MacArthur Boulevard where the past will always have a place in the present.

—Scott Sowers