On a Sunny Sunday

Sometimes, you just have to hop in the car and take off somewhere! That’s what I did on Sunday. After being super scheduled for the past month, things are beginning to clear up a bit and I found myself with a free day. So, off I went to explore.

I grew up in a neighbourhood designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the famed landscape architect who created Central Park in NYC. One of his hallmarks is using the land as his guide, following the curves of the hills and valleys to create non-linear streetscapes. Roland Park, where I lived, has a lot of hills, but the neighborhood I wanted to explore, Sudbrook Park, is basically flat with winding streets, open spaces and large historic houses. You enter the neighbourhood over a one-lane bridge and then the streets branch out before you.

Most of the houses were in the shingle cottage style. I was particularly taken with these two, which are similar, but the two-story windows are a little different.

And I adored this one.

I couldn’t quite figure this one out. Nothing seemed quite right about it.

From Sudbrook Park, I headed up the road to see one of my favourite buildings. It’s the current HQ for the Maryland State Police, but at one point, it was the Home for Confederate Veterans where my many greats-grandfather was exiled after the Civil War.

I think it’s such a handsome place, looking more like a house in New Orleans than Baltimore.

The whole property is fascinating. It’s sort of Georgian in design, with what were originally barracks for the old soldiers, surrounding a courtyard.

And the details are so interesting. This is sort of a turret with an eagle and shield on it.

From there, I headed over to a nearby thrift shop where I always have great luck! I picked up this Emma Bridgewater Union Jack mug for a pittance.

And this antique apothecary bottle for slightly more than a pittance.

I still haven’t quite figured out what Ol. Gaulth is, although I think gault is a heavy clay. Hmmm. Any ideas?

#ThisIsBaltimore2017: Winter Edition

If you read my last post on discovering the modernist church, you know I am still out and about and discovering new parts of Baltimore. It’s been a lot of fun, and lest you be concerned, I am keeping safe and minding where I am going. If I feel the slightest bit unsafe, I photograph from the car. The handy sunroof helps with that.

Sometimes, I just need to get out of the office, so I’ve taken to lunch-time photo safaris. Since my office is in mid-town, I can get to different areas pretty quickly.

I came across this lovely little doorway on an abandoned building. The other property on the site builds burial vaults, so this might have been them showing off what they could do.

A friend took me to an old German cemetery where there were loads of these angels dropping flowers.

This old bank looks like it’s been converted to a private home or apartments. I wouldn’t say no!

True confession: I didn’t take this picture, my bestie Cat took it. I am madly jealous that she spotted this amazing shot before I did. I love that you can see so many layers of the city.

It was a perfect day to take a picture of the entrance to the old Mount Olivet Cemetery.

And then take another picture of the entrance with the great arched windows, the arch, the tree and the graves. I think I might need to go back when I have more time.

I’ve always been intrigued with this building. I wonder if it was an old bank building.

Zipped down to the ocean on Sunday. It was chilly, but sunny. I took advantage of that and dozed on the deck.

I am teaching my iPhone photography class again on March 23 & 30th. If you’re in Baltimore and you are interested, please click this link to see the catalogue and registration information. I’d love to have you in the class! It’s lots of fun.

Modernism Discovered

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I am on a quest to search out parts of Baltimore where I’ve never been. So, I am taking the back way home, turning left instead of right and carrying around the Guide to Baltimore Architecture in my car. But with all of that, I still make unexpected discoveries.

As I was returning from a Sunday brunch overlooking Baltimore’s harbour, I decided to take an alternate route back to my house. I wound my way through one of Baltimore’s many parks and came out on the other side. In the near distance, something caught my eye, so I took a couple of turns and came across a mid-century modern church that was such an anomaly in the area that it made me gasp!

I hated that there were phone lines across the view, so I drove around the block to check out the other side of the building. On this side, it’s about one level higher than on the other side. And there’s a building attached to the side which was originally separate, but is now connected.

Luckily, church was just getting out, and when the pastor saw me taking pictures, he beckoned me over. I asked him about the history, but he only knew that it had been built in the early 1960’s. Allegedly, an “Indian” woman who lived in the area gave the funds to build the church, but wanted it in the shape of a teepee. Hard to believe that’s true.

The pastor kindly invited me in to see the interior of the church, and I was completely shocked!

The interior is wood, with sweeping vertical beams. The interior is amazingly intact, which was a surprise, since many buildings of this era have been sliced and diced, and all of the original details have been destroyed. There are some windows that have been filled in, but that’s easily corrected. The skills needed to build a structure like this are incredible, especially with the ribbing and the wood cladding.

The pastor told me that the church could hold 1,500 people, but I am a bit doubtful of that claim. Maybe 500, if people squish together…

The odd thing about this church is that I can’t find ANY information about it. I know it was constructed in the early 1960’s, but can find nothing about the architect, or the original congregation. Someone told me that their dentist had an office in the adjacent building. Someone else said that it might have been a Seventh Day Adventist Church, and the original pastor came from Kansas where Frank Lloyd Wright designed a church which was supposed to look like this, but which was never built. I’ve asked all of my architect and architecture-groupie friends, and no one seems to have any information about it. Do you???

Flowers for Valentine’s Day

My friend, Andrea is one of the most talented people I know. She started as a floral designer and while she’s moved on to other ventures, she still takes on a few events for private clients. When a friend asked her to do the flowers for an important dinner later this week, Andrea said yes, and off to the flower wholesalers we went!

I’d never been to a place like this before, so it was a wonderful adventure! Of course, I couldn’t resist snapping tons of images. The warehouse is huge! There are several huge walk-in cold-boxes and this time of year, they’re filled with thousands of roses.

The roses ran the full spectrum, from the deepest reds to the most gorgeous pale pink David Austin-style ones.

But the warehouse had a lot of other flowers as well like these yummy yellow Ranunculus,

stunning purple orchids,

chrysanthemums which look like something from Dr. Seuss,

hundreds of branches of about-to-bloom forsythia,

and the teeniest, tiniest “pineapples”.

It was so hard to focus on finding a special treat for myself because there was so much to choose from – and this was just one room!

But in the end, I picked out some of my favourite freesias with their peppery sweet fragrance.

Thanks so much to Robin and Potomac Floral Wholesale for patiently answering all of my questions!

Mad About the House Blog

It’s really a small world, you know. Kate Watson-Smyth, the god-mother of the children of a friend of mine in London (follow that?) writes the most gorgeous blog called Mad About the House. She is based in the UK and sources most of her images and items from that side of the pond.

She writes several rotating features including 10 Beautiful Rooms, The Househunter: Room by Room, 10 Best and others. If you read British design magazines regularly, you will notice that the houses and rooms that they feature are not styled to within an inch of their lives like the rooms in American magazines. They have that lived-in look, with stacks of books on the floor, faded chintzes and a dog lazing on the sofa. I find this rather comforting.

Here are some of my recent favourites that Kate has featured.

Georgian details in the boot room.Perfection!

Beadboard walls, pinkish plaster, great stove… yep, I’ll take it!

Honestly, I am not wild about the furniture, but wow, those windows!!!!

Lightness, brightness and lots of cheer!

Simplicity

Holy cow! That wall is AMAZING!

That sofa is a killer!

I hope you’ll pop over and take a look at Mad About the House. I am mad about it!

Baltimore in the Wall Street Journal

There was a great article about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Baltimore in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. The writer, Nina Sovich’s, family originally came from Baltimore and she returned for a visit. Although her family was worried about her coming, she found that the city is not what most people think.

She discovered some of Baltimore’s treasures in various buildings in the Mount Vernon neighbourhood where she spent much of her visit.

My office is in Mount Vernon, so I know the area well. Nina did a great job conveying that there are amazing parts of the city that you will never know if you only watch The Wire.

Coincidentally, I had just finished a book last weekend which had the most beautiful description of Baltimore, from a surgeon at Hopkins who had moved here in the late 1800’s from rural Ontario and lived here for more than 50 years. He made it his home and loved it.

Charles Street in certain lights can revert. The sky clears after a storm, the day thins and recedes. Along Charles Street, Baltimore is again the Baltimore Tom Cullen knew in youth; the town whose portrait is engraved in old prints, withdrawing in mannerly perspective before the eye of the beholder, accepting with happy serenity of the well-proportioned the homage of regard. It was so, coming to Eager Street on a remembered evening.

New snow on the sills and cornices laid soft-edged accents below and above the ordered rows of lighted windows. The west was blue-green over the gas lamps of the climbing cross streets, the east pale with reflected brightness. Against it on the far hilltop a dome showed - small and dark beyond the balustrade of Mount Vernon Place and the lines of lights falling away and lifting again - the lanterned dome of Johns Hopkins. Tom Cullen broke a silence that was long for him.

"I love this old town," he said.

You can (maybe) read the entire article here. It might be behind a pay-wall.