Evergreen House in Baltimore

On Saturday, I was lucky enough to be included with a small group of curators, archivists and researchers from galleries and museums in DC on a tour of the beautiful house, Evergreen. I drive by this house every morning and afternoon on my way to and from work, but haven't actually been inside the house since I was in my early teens. The house is very deceptive - from the front you don't get any sense of how large it is - 44 rooms.

Evergreen was home to the Garrett family from the 1870's to the 1950's. Although time has encroached on its borders, it is still surrounded by gorgeous gardens, even this early in the spring, and the old carriage house with its stables and gravestones of favourite horses. I had some time before the crew arrived from DC to walk the property and take lots of photographs.

Most of the ironwork, lighting and glass, other than windows, is from Tiffany Studios. There are actually a lot of Tiffany glass windows in Baltimore because of the influence of the Garrett Family, and work they did with McKim Mead & White. I worked at another Garrett mansion in the city, which also had tons of Tiffany glass.

The library at Evergreen is spectacular. There is a complete set of Audubon Double Elephant Bird Folios, a page of which can go for more than $175,000! A complete set was sold at Christie's for $8.8 million. There are Shakespeare manuscripts, signatures of all of the early US Presidents, and a book I would have loved to look at called "Scraps". My mother told me that the book group my father belonged to used to meet there for cocktails and dinner. Wow!

Architecturally, the house is Italianate with revival additions. There are columns, leaded glass windows and cornices. There is a gold bathroom, where all of the wood and pipes are covered with 23 carat gold, a theatre stencilled by Leon Baskt, an iron and glass floor installed by Tiffany Studios and so much more.

If you're in Baltimore, Evergreen House is worth an afternoon of your time.