Tag: Mount Vernon

Baltimore Building of the Week: Victorian Gothic Churches

This edition of the Baltimore Building of the Week series features two Victorian Gothic Churches that should be familiar to Baltimore Heritage members from our Mt. Vernon Open Houses during our 50th Anniversary Celebration and our February Behind the Scenes Tour of First and Franklin.

Mt. Vernon Place Methodist Church, courtesy Jack Breihan

These highly visible churches represent another Victorian style originating in Europe, known here as Victorian Gothic. Like the contemporary Second Empire style, the Victorian Gothic shows off modern industrial materials like polished marble, encaustic tiles, and structural iron. Unlike the Second Empire, Victorian Gothic buildings tend to be deliberately asymmetrical in plan. Completed in 1872, the Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church marked a change in style for Methodists, who had previously worshiped in simple, classical buildings. Not so here! The polychrome exterior combines brown sandstone with a greenish “serpentine” stone and polished marble. At about the same time and only a few blocks away on West Madison Street, First Presbyterian (now merged with the congregation of the Franklin Street Presbyterian) added a radically asymmetric pair of steeples to a pretty antebellum Gothic Revival sanctuary. The steeples, built mostly of iron, are hard-edged and dramatic–anything but pretty.

First and Franklin Street Presbyterian Church, courtesy Jack Breihan

Baltimore Building of the Week: Second Empire Rowhouses

This week’s featured Baltimore Building of the Week from Dr. John Breihan is the stylish Second Empire Rowhouse,

St. Paul Street, courtesy Jack Breihan

St. Paul Street is particularly rich in rowhouses in the Second Empire style. Note the elaborate window moldings and of course the crowning Mansard roof. These houses were probably constructed in the 1870s, the heyday of the style. The grandest of the Second Empire city houses was the mansion of Enoch Pratt on Monument Street, an 1870s-era remodeling of an original Greek Revival house of 1847. The house has been preserved by the Maryland Historical Society.

Enoch Pratt House, courtesy Jack Breihan

Celebrating 50 Years of Historic Preservation in Baltimore

In June, Baltimore Heritage celebrated 50 years of historic preservation work in Baltimore with an anniversary gala at the Garrett-Jacobs Mansion. With a crowd of 400, a set of historic open houses across Mount Vernon Place, an auction of Baltimore art, and the annual presentation of historic preservation awards, the evening was a crowded and celebratory affair.

Highlighting the event, three of Baltimore Heritage’s original 11 founders from 1960 were present to help celebrate. Richard E. Gatchell, Charles A. Porter Hopkins, and William Boulton “Bo” Kelly, Jr. helped launch Baltimore Heritage a half-century ago to provide a voice for preserving the city’s historic buildings and neighborhoods. At the June gala, they offered remarks on the historic preservation movement in Baltimore, its accomplishments and the challenges that lie ahead.

As the three founders noted, the creation of Baltimore Heritage was a joint effort by many civic institutions and led by a group called the Junior Chamber of Commerce. In the early years, high priority projects included saving the Garrett-Jacobs Mansion and other buildings on Mount Vernon Place from proposed demolition and blocking a federal highway proposed to run through Fell’s Point and Federal Hill.

The celebration continues this fall with a special 50th Anniversary bus tour. On October 3, you can join us in retracing the route of the central Baltimore bus tour that led to the founding of Baltimore Heritage. For more information on upcoming programs and events call 410-332-9992 or e-mail Johns Hopkins at hopkins@baltimoreheritage.org.

Baltimore Building of the Week: Old Loyola College

Revealing his fondness for the history of his own institution, Dr. John Breihan, a professor of history at Loyola University Maryland, offers this week’s Baltimore Building of the Week on the historic buildings of St. Ignatius Church and Old Loyola College, used since the 1970s as the home of Center Stage,

Image courtesy Jack Breihan

Just a few blocks away from the Peabody, stretching along Calvert Street between Madison and Monument Streets, stands another massive Italian palace, built for another educational institution. The patron here was the Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious order. Again, we see arched windows with elaborate moldings, and a heavy Italianate cornice unifying the northern half, containing St. Ignatius Church (designed by Louis L. Long and completed in 1856) with the southern (designed by O’Connor and Delaney of New York and finished in 1899). Besides the parish church, this huge redbrick palace housed Loyola College and Loyola High School until they split into two separate institutions and moved away in 1922. Since the mid-1970s the long vacant southern section has been imaginatively re-used for two theaters designed by James Grieves and the firm of Ziger, Hoopes, and Snead for the Center Stage repertory theater.

Baltimore Building of the Week: Peabody Institute

If you enjoyed the tour of the Peabody Library during our 50th Anniversary Celebration back on June 11, you will likely enjoy this week’s entry in our Baltimore Building of the Week series on the Peabody Institute,

Image courtesy Jack Breihan

Although a long row of Italianate rowhouses (think Union Square) could look like one of the urban palaces of the Italian Renaissance, Baltimore boasts a few genuine Italianate palaces. In 1857 the international philanthropist George Peabody endowed Baltimore with an institute devoted to music and the arts. The architect Edmund G. Lind designed its initial building in 1859 and a large addition containing a fireproof library built 1875-78. Although the magnificent cast-iron Peabody Library draws the most attention, Lind has done an excellent job uniting the exterior facades of the two buildings beneath a heavy Italianate cornice and balustrade.