The district was developed in the early part of the 20th century by members of the Calvert family who were descendants or other relatives of Charles Benedict Calvert, the owner of Riversdale Plantation and Rossborough Farm and the founder of what is now the University of Maryland, College Park. The majority of homes were built for families in the early 1940s. Many of the single-family houses in the district follow a Colonial, Cape Cod, or Victorian style.[2] Calvert Hills was annexed into the city of College Park in 1943.[1][3][4]