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Despite sophisticated promotional efforts, Woods and Martin did not sell many lots in Woodmar during the 1920s.  From the beginning the investors experienced organizational problems.  The project was divided into three parts, the owners, Woodmar Realty Company, the sponsors, Woods, Martin & Company, and the exclusive sales agents the Securities Realty Company.  One year after sales began however, Woods, Martin & Company dissolved.  Two advertisements explained that Frank R. Martin, secretary treasurer of the firm, would be the “liquidating agent.”  Also, Martin would continue his real estate agency in the then current offices of Woods, Martin & Company.   Roscoe E. Woods would move his offices to a temporary location until his new office building was erected.  It seemed that the venture of Woodmar was a complicated affair that would be left without a dominant voice especially with the dissolution of the sponsoring firm.

            In order to create their exclusive suburb, the developers placed restrictions such as race exclusions, automobile limitations and building and zoning codes, as stated previously in the promotional literature.  They planned an environment that would perpetuate a ‘good life’ in their standards; by making the neighborhoods available only to those they felt were desirable persons and/or families.  A person had to be of the correct ethnic decent and wealthy to surpass the Woodmar restrictions.  Thus, Woodmar became home to the few well-to-do left without a subdivision and an unattainable goal for the majority of the region’s inhabitants.

            The realtors hoped their subdivision would appeal to wealthy, potential buyers throughout metropolitan Chicago, unlike Kenwood, which catered to the region’s elite.  This explains the efforts at distributing attractive promotional literature describing the desirable qualities of Woodmar.  Some remnants of these plans remain, parkways, Jens Jensen’s architectural landscaping, curved streets, and a few houses, including that of sponsor Roscoe E. Woods.  The developers wanted to build a subdivision with large houses and wealthy people.  This changed from their idea concerning Kenwood that incorporated a more carefully designed landscape rather than large houses.

            They clearly misread the market when it came to Woodmar.  By 1929, the directory showed only about 50 families living in Woodmar, which was quite low since the subdivision had been on the market since 1923.   The Woodmar lifestyle may not have been the way people from the Calumet Region wanted to live.

 Also, how could the developers be antagonistic toward automobiles when transportation was essential to the livelihoods of the people they were trying to bring into Woodmar?  By 1926, they seemingly realized their mistake leading to an ad campaign incorporating the backing of the Ford Motor Company.  Without cars, they realized it would have been difficult to reach stores, churches, schools, and other such amenities located outside of Woodmar.  Although lots had been set aside for such places, none had been built before people began looking at the subdivision.  Commuter lines, also, weren’t accessible at the time the development was created, leaving anyone from Chicago to drive to work, which would have been an unrealistic task at that time.  Consequently, unlike Kenwood, which catered to a local middle class who worked in the region, Woodmar was trying to draw upon a new market that would not be utilized until later years.

Woodmar was a subdivision before its time.  The size of it was “equal to 32 ordinary subdivisions.”[1]  The developers had vision but were unable to base it in reality.  Ideas such as the airport were impractical.  On the average, people wouldn’t commute by plane to their places of work.  Also, Woodmar was too far from places like downtown Hammond and East Chicago.  For example, the distance from Roscoe E. Woods’ house on  Knickerbocker Boulevard (now 7051 Knickerbocker Parkway) was 3.75 miles to downtown Hammond[2], and 3.7 miles to East Chicago.[3] Other comparable subdivisions were much closer, for instance Glendale Park is only 1.22 miles from Downtown Hammond.[4] People most likely did not want the hassle of trying to get a ride or drive to a place where they could walk to from other parts of the city just as easily. Woodmar did not work for the original developers. They didn’t get the people they believed would be attracted to the ‘suburb.’  Woodmar just didn’t work out the way the planners had envisioned it. 

Woods and Martin developed both Kenwood and Woodmar.  They had success with Kenwood and wanted to continue that success with Woodmar.  However, Woodmar was an attempt at something different, something before its time, and that made it a failure for Woods and Martin.  Kenwood, on the other hand, had been what the people in the region wanted, and therefore was successful.  Woods and Martin attempted the development of two very different subdivisions and it is obvious that Kenwood was the more plausible of the two.                

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