Tag: Mount Vernon

Restoration Two Ways in Mount Vernon and an Evening to Remember in Hampden!

Do you know one of the wonderful things about Baltimore rowhouses? Even when they look nearly the same on the outside, there are countless different ways they can be rehabbed and restored on the inside. Please join us next week on a tour of two neighboring rowhouses in Mount Vernon. Each is grand in its own way: one restored to its original glory and the other rehabbed by mixing stunning modern elements with the historic fabric.

We’re also pleased to be working with a new partner—the Greater Hampden Heritage Alliance—to develop a new Explore Baltimore Heritage tour of Hampden and promote an evening open house this Friday. Come out to enjoy the historic Church & Co. venue (a former church, of course!), hear performances by local musicians, donated refreshments, and bid on their fun silent auction to raise money for a new history walking tour brochure of Hampden landmarks!

As always, we hope you can join us for one of our Looking Up Downtown tours or stop by Patterson Park for our next free Battle of Baltimore tour.

Featured image: Photograph of 823-831 Park Avenue Baltimore, MD. Courtesy Library of Congress, Historic American Building Survey, HABS MD-1135-1.

Historic Clubs & Cocktails! Join us for a walking tour and happy hour at the Hamilton Street Club on May 31

Hamilton Street Club, 1936

Established in 1925, the Hamilton Street Club occupies a pre-1820 townhouse in a row designed by early Baltimore architect Robert Carey Long, Sr. – also the architect for the Peale Museum and Davidge Hall. Among Baltimore’s private social clubs, Hamilton Street has a reputation for both intellectual conversation and irreverence. It is a place where, as Francis F. Beirne recounted in The Amiable Baltimoreans, “anybody could say what he pleased and talk as long as he pleased but nobody was required to listen.”

The club’s popularity among by local writers, as well as journalists and editors from the Baltimore Sun, led long-time club president and owner of the Victor G. Bloede Chemical Co. William W. Woollcott to remark, “Here I am, the only businessman in the club, surrounded by parasites.” Join us at the club on May 31 for food, drinks and great conversation with fellow preservationists, including a chance to meet a few of the club’s long-time members.

Bonus! Walking Tour of Mt. Vernon’s Historic Clubs

Work up a thirst before the happy hour with a quick stroll through the history of private social clubs in Mt. Vernon. On a short walk from Mt. Vernon Place to the happy hour, we’ll share stories of Confederate sympathizers, tireless social reformers, and the most serious of university scholars from the neighborhood’s private social clubs from past and present. The tour begins at 6:00pm in the north park of Mt. Vernon Place by Charles and Madison Streets.

The woman whose love was worth more than the throne of England

Happy Valentine’s Day! Thanks to everyone who showed up for the Mount Vernon Valentine’s Tour this past Sunday. One of our favorite stories from the tour was the story of Baltimore’s Wallis Simpson and her marriage to Edward VIII: a man who gave up the throne of England to be with the woman he loved. Nathan Dennies, one of our volunteer writers and a student at the University of Baltimore, has finished writing a great story on Wallis’ time living with her mother and stepfather at 212 East Biddle Street:

Wallis Simpson's home during the time it was a museum. Image courtesy of "That Woman" by Anne Sebba.
Wallis Simpson’s home during the time it was a museum.
Image courtesy of “That Woman” by Anne Sebba.

The house on 212 East Biddle Street had three bedrooms: one for Wallis, one for her mother,and another that Wallis assumed was a guest bedroom. Little did she know that her mother was planning on remarrying and the extra bedroom would soon become the room of her new stepfather, John Freeman Rasin, son of the head of the Baltimore Democratic Party, Carroll Rasin. Wallis was crushed. She had envisioned a life of independence with her mother, free from relying on the financial help of others. Wallis threatened to run away, but reluctantly came to terms with her mother’s decision.

The marriage was held in the parlor of their home on June 20, 1908. The climax of the wedding came when Wallis, perhaps out of spite, snuck off to the kitchen and dug her hands into the cake in search of the good-luck tokens hidden inside. When her mother and stepfather came into the kitchen and saw the ruined cake, they stood speechless. Suddenly, Mr. Rasin laughed, picked Wallis up, and twirled her in the air. This act of forgiveness touched the young Wallis, and she never gave her stepfather any more trouble.

Read the full piece on Explore Baltimore Heritage. Don’t forget to download our free Explore Baltimore Heritage app for iPhone and Android!

200 Years of Love Stories: Mt. Vernon Valentine’s Tour

Wallis_Simpson c. 1936
Wallis Simpson c. 1936

Love, romance, jealousy… Mt. Vernon is the home not only of great architecture but also of great love stories. After a six-year hiatus, historian Jamie Hunt is back with a tour of historic romance in Mt. Vernon this Sunday. What better way to gear up for Valentine’s Day? We hope you can join us!

Tour Information

Sunday, February 10, 2013
1:00 pm to 2:30 pm or 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm (tours are the same, choose just one)
Meet at 14 West Mt. Vernon Place (Agora / Marburg Mansion), Baltimore, MD 21201
RSVP today! $10 per person for Baltimore Heritage members / $20 for non-members

For two centuries, Mt. Vernon has seen spectacular love stories, bitter feuds, and more than a few juicy trysts. The neighborhood’s earliest days inlclude the patriot and Mt. Vernon landowner John Eager Howard marrying a charming young Philadelphian, Harriet Chew, after her first love was hanged for treason in a plot that involved Benedict Arnold. Fast forward 200 years and Mt. Vernon saw a 20th century gradutate of its Baltimore School for the Arts, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, fall in love with and marry another noted Philadelphian, actor Will Smith.

In between these two sets of lovers are the royal tales of Betsy Patterson Bonaparte, who died wealthy but bitter in Mt. Vernon years after an annulled marriage to Napoleon’s brother Jerome, and Bessie Wallis Warfield, who was christened in a neighborhood church (just across the street from where Betsy died) and grew up to become the Duchess of Windsor. Not to be outdone by royalty, some of Baltimore’s most storied authors have ties to Mt. Vernon along with their beautful, sad marriages, including Edgar Allan Poe, H.L. Mencken, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. And of course the rich and famous of Baltimore’s Gilded Age include more than a few with offbeat love lives. Please join us and historian Jamie Hunt as we uncover historic loves won and lost in Baltimore’s great Mt. Vernon neighborhood.