One of my favorite books on my architectural library shelves  is “Painted Ladies: San Francisco’s Resplendent Victorians”, filled with pictures of the “great ladies” festooned with elaborate ornamentation and three or more colors.  Last year I featured the Federal style house at the corner of Goldsborough and Harrison and admired this irresistible house across the corner that combined the best of the Queen Anne and Victorian styles.  On the day I visited today’s feature, I first walked around the house and admired the massing and the rich range of details enhanced by a color scheme of light green, cream and deep purple.  

The street elevation is a delightful composition with its full front porch, two second floor windows offset above the front door and single window, the hipped roof punctuated by a single dormer window and the magnificent corner turret. I loved the textures of the scalloped siding that clads the roof dormer, second floor walls and accent walls of the first floor with a band of purple trim separating the scalloped shakes from the lap siding of the main floor. Other accents of purple include bands around the porch columns, skirt board, window, door and eave trim.  The turret is the “hinge” that connect the front elevation with the side elevation along the side street.  The gable projection at the side appears to be a later addition and is currently furnished as a billiard room but could also become a family room. At the end of the side elevation on the second floor is a room I coveted with its wrap-around windows that creates the ideal sleeping porch. Below the sleeping porch off the kitchen is an open porch festooned with fretwork between turned columns. 

The front door opens into a spacious foyer with a bay projection and a long vista past the “U” shaped open stair to a hall leading to a cozy library with a seat below the side window.  The magnificent stair of stained oak is beautifully detailed with paneled newel posts, treads and elaborate skirt boards accented by white risers. To the left of the foyer is the living room with its corner turret and bowed windows. Floor to ceiling ornamentation includes the chair rail separating the patterned wallpaper from the painted wall with a wallpaper border in another pattern below multiple layers of molding and the ceiling with a wide white border surrounding a third patterned wallpaper. The fireplace chimney projects into the room and backs up to the adjacent dining room’s fireplace and is detailed with fluted side molding and swag details underneath the mantel. 

The focal point of the dining room is its side wall bay projection and this room’s interior design includes a chair rail between the toile patterned wallpaper from the vertical striped  wallpaper below. The firebox is covered with a ceramic mural that reminded me of the artist Susan Stockman’s work and opposite the fireplace is a built-in china cabinet. The rear door leads to a short hall to access the billiard room opposite closets and a secondary stair next to the kitchen. The rear wall of the billiard room connects to an “L” shaped room with built-ins, exterior door and a ½ bath that would be a convenient office.  

I admired the kitchen’s brick herringbone patterned floor, tin ceiling and the windows at the side and rear walls that define the breakfast area. The kitchen sink could be switched with the Bertazzoni range on the exterior wall to give the cook a window overlooking the back porch.  

The three second floor guest bedrooms have great interior architectural appeal with two of the rooms having bay shaped projections and the third bedroom’s bonus of the exquisite turret. At the rear of the house is the spacious primary bedroom suite that includes the sleeping porch. The hall space between the secondary stair leading down to the kitchen and the primary bath could easily be incorporated into the master bath if an expansion is needed.

The third floor has the same trim detailing, paneled door and wood floors as the other two floors but here walls are painted to accentuate the delightful interior geometry from the intersections of the knee walls with the sloped ceilings that follow the underside of the roof framing above for a sculptural effect. 

One of Easton’s Historic District gems, with a level of detailing and construction quality not easily found today.  A corner lot that allows more sunlight and privacy,  great flow for entertaining with shops and restaurants nearby- I thoroughly enjoyed my tour of this “Great Painted Lady”!

For more information about this property, contact Chuck Mangold with Benson & Mangold Real Estate at 410-822-6665 (o), 410-924-8832 (c) or chuck@chuckmangold.com. For more pictures and pricing, visit www.122GoldsboroughStreet.com,  “Equal Housing Opportunity”.

Photography by Jennifer Madino

Spy House of the Week is an ongoing series that selects a different home each week. The Spy’s Habitat editor Jennifer Martella makes these selections based exclusively on her experience as a architect.

Jennifer Martella has pursued her dual careers in architecture and real estate since she moved to the Eastern Shore in 2004. Her award winning work has ranged from revitalization projects to a collaboration with the Maya Lin Studio for the Children’s Defense Fund’s corporate retreat in her home state of Tennessee.

During my tenure as Director of Marketing and Operations at Urban Design Associates in Pittsburgh, the firm was hired to design the master plan for the new neighborhood of Easton Village and to produce a “Pattern Book” of house designs. The team of urban planners and architects visited Easton, Oxford and St. Michaels and they were especially enchanted by Oxford in general and Morris St. in particular. Between the landmarks of The Church of the Holy Trinity and the Robert Morris Inn, the design team discovered  a treasure trove of houses like this two-story, five bay house with its center gable penetrating the roof and inset with a circular window with a diamond shaped muntin. The classic exterior color palette of white lap siding and  black shutters, 2/2 windows and a period four-panel wood door with arched tops, full transom and half-glass sidelights is simply elegant.

The house is set on a wide lot with ample room for a driveway to a rear one car garage with an office/studio above.  On the day I visited, I first walked around the lot and admired the mature landscaping and the charming brick mini-guest cottage.  Then I walked close to the edge of the shoreline along the Tred Avon River and  paused to gaze at the view of the Choptank River on the horizon and imagined how beautiful the sunsets must be from this property. 

The front door opens into a foyer with a winding stair to the second floor. The door to the adjacent sunroom was open to create a clear vista through the sunroom’s rear wall of glass doors to the garden, lawn and water beyond. A wide elliptical arched opening leads to the living room and another elliptical arched opening divides the room into an inglenook with the fireplace flanked by fan topped recessed niches of open shelves.  The backs of the niches were painted light blue to better highlight the collection of fine china and the light blue and peach color interior design created a serene setting.  I especially admired the exquisite identical twin antique settees beneath the front windows and the plantation shutters were the prefect solution for privacy on a main street while still allowing light to filter inside.

Across the foyer is a smaller elliptical arch to the dining room with another fireplace and cupboards on each side that serves as a butler’s pantry.  The room is beautifully appointed with antique furnishings including an exquisite sideboard and a period crystal chandelier. Behind the dining room is a second stair and a galley kitchen with an exterior door to the driveway. The kitchen’s wood floors, white cabinets, white veined marble countertops and stainless steel appliances have all the essentials any cook needs. 

A later addition to the house created stacked suites with full baths and closets and tall bay window projections on each level. On the main level, the rear room is the library with a fireplace and built-in millwork. I admired the deep red walls with white trim, the picture rail that is set at the height of the panels above the bay’s window frames and how the white open shelves of the built-ins contrasted with the deep red walls. The bay window is positioned to have a clear view of the water and even though it is a delightful library, this room could easily become a primary bedroom suite. 

The addition changed the geometry of the original footprint from a rectangle to an “L” shape with the sunroom at the inside corner of the “L”. This informal room with painted wood floors has ample space for breakfast and seating for relaxation. Four pairs of sliding doors access the delightful garden with brick walkways around the parterre, sculpture and long views to the water. 

To break up the massing of the addition, the connection to the original part of the house steps down to create a space with windows in the knee walls and a pitched ceiling. The built-in millwork creates a great office space that includes the secondary stair down to the kitchen.  The rear room of the second floor is the primary suite with a tall bay window in the bedroom overlooking the gardens that provides bird’s eye views of the water.  The pitched ceiling and trimmed exposed collar beam over the beautiful antique furnishings and the restful interior design creates a serene retreat.

The main stair landing in the original part of the house leads to the second floor two guest rooms located at the front corners with a shared  a “Jack and Jill”  bath. I loved the interior design of one bedroom with its twin beds’ pencil post wood frames and white bed linens. At the foot of each bed is a quilt rack draped  with colorful quilts for cool evenings. As lovely as this bedroom was, as a guest, I would claim the tiny one bedroom suite in the brick outbuilding beside the parterre garden as it is so easy to be charmed by a diminutive scale. The mini-cottage’s bonus is the pergola over the terrace behind the building for front row seats to watch the sun set. The side wall facing the adjoining property has a lattice panel for privacy and the lattice echoes the detail on the wall of the garage/studio across the garden. 

Breathtaking long views to the Choptank River on the horizon, historic town, period architecture, outbuildings for myriad uses, the parterre garden and mature landscaping-all in one of my favorite towns-simply delightful!

For more information about this property, contact Ray Stevens with Benson & Mangold Real Estate at 410-226-0111 (o), 410-310-6060 (c) or ore@goeaston.net. For more photographs and pricing, visit www.oxfordmdrealestate.com, Equal Housing Opportunity”.

Spy House of the Week is an ongoing series that selects a different home each week. The Spy’s Habitat editor Jennifer Martella makes these selections based exclusively on her experience as a architect.

Jennifer Martella has pursued her dual careers in architecture and real estate since she moved to the Eastern Shore in 2004. Her award winning work has ranged from revitalization projects to a collaboration with the Maya Lin Studio for the Children’s Defense Fund’s corporate retreat in her home state of Tennessee.

  

When I first moved to this area, I had an apartment on the second floor of the building that now houses the Nancy Hammond Gallery. I loved taking walks with my beloved Sheltie along the streets near the property and I always paused by this house to admire its double lot that created spacious side and rear yards for privacy. I also admired the simple elegance of the three-bay house with the center front door and original transom, 6/6 sash windows and the painted common bond brick façade that needed no other ornamentation to add to its charm. 

Perhaps my years of watching PBS’ Masterpiece Theater influenced me to imagine “a Rector’s wife” would open the door to the brick walk that ended at manicured boxwoods and give me a friendly wave. How fitting since the house’s provenance includes being the Parsonage for the Methodist Episcopal Church in the mid 1800’!  The deed noted the house was formerly the residence of John Wrightson. The house is also distinctive for its being one of few brick houses in St. Michaels’ Historic District and was probably rebuilt around a one-story house dating from 1825-1850. The house’s architectural history continued with an 1877 expansion with a final  extensive renovation and updates from 2006 -2020. 

On the day of my visit, I noticed that the windows have wood lintels underneath brick jack arches and once inside, I saw clues in the flooring that indicated  the original stair had been centered opposite the front door to create two front parlors, each with its own fireplace on the side walls.  I much prefer how the renovation relocated the stair to the rear part of the house. Now both the sitting area and the dining area are next to fireplaces and sunlight streams into the room throughout the day from its south-east-west orientation. 

The rear of the main floor is an open-plan family/kitchen area and one side of the relocated stairs has an open railing that overlooks the space.  The powder room is discretely tucked under the stairs and decorated with one of my favorite Henri de Toulouse Lautrec posters, “Divan Japonais Music Hall”.  The “L” shaped kitchen with an island has historic olive green colored cabinetry with one of my favorite granite countertops that I often specify for my architectural clients. My only change would be to remove the soffit above the upper cabinets and replace them with glass fronted units for storage of pieces for special occasions or paint the soffit the color of the cabinetry for a uniform look. French doors lead from the family room area to a spacious deck overlooking the side and rear yards.  

The second floor bedrooms are located at the front and rear of the house between the stairs, laundry closet and bath.  A smaller open room next to the front bedroom could be used as a nursery or office. As tempting as it would be to make the  front bedroom the primary bedroom with its one wall of closets, I prefer the interior architecture of the rear bedroom with its knee walls, sloped ceilings, dormer side window and rear double windows giving bird’s eye views of the landscaping below.  I would replace the rear double unit windows with French doors to a screened porch over the deck below for a warm weather outdoor sitting room overlooking the side and rear yards.

Even though the house is located in the heart of St. Michaels’ Historic District, the wooden fence on one side and the hedge on the other side make this property a private oasis. The studio building at the rear yard also contributes to the privacy since it blocks the view of the adjacent rear property. With cabinets and a sink, the studio building is ready for the next artisan or other creative endeavors. Great provenance and historic charm with modern updates-an irresistible opportunity! 

For more information about this property, contact Joan Wetmore with Meredith Fine Properties at 410-822-6702 (o), 410-924-2432 (c) or JoanWetmore@msn.com. For more photographs and pricing visit www.meredithfineproperties.com ,  “Equal Housing Opportunity”. 

Photography by True Place, (301) 972-3201, www.go.truplace.com

Spy House of the Week is an ongoing series that selects a different home each week. The Spy’s Habitat editor Jennifer Martella makes these selections based exclusively on her experience as a architect.

Jennifer Martella has pursued her dual careers in architecture and real estate since she moved to the Eastern Shore in 2004. Her award winning work has ranged from revitalization projects to a collaboration with the Maya Lin Studio for the Children’s Defense Fund’s corporate retreat in her home state of Tennessee.

 

Not so long ago, the town of Denton had given tentative approval for a significant housing development that would have permitted 2,500 new homes to be constructed. The community leaders showed minimal hesitation in giving the go-ahead since it doubled the town’s size, increased the tax base, and presumably added significantly to its economic development.

But on closer inspection, the planned community showed significant flaws. Denton’s doubling in less than two years would have caused major stresses on the town’s infrastructure, contrasted significantly to the community’s historic rural aesthetic, and highlighted fundamental weaknesses in how small municipalities can control this form of aggressive development.

As the town began to push back on the developer’s plans, investors lost interest in Denton, and in the end, the project was scrapped entirely.

According to Jay Corvan, who has practiced architecture and town planning for decades from his office in Trappe, the Denton case perfectly outlined what can happen when developers are on their own in determining the scope and design of housing projects on the Eastern Shore.

Jay’s solution, supported by many of his colleagues, is creating a “pattern book” that can be applied to an entire region like the Mid-Shore to provide clear and straightforward guidelines for developers to avoid what took place in Denton.

The pattern book approach would give towns like Trappe, the location of another major housing development on the other side of Route 50, the tools needed to appropriate scale these new communities with far more precision than existing zoning and planning regulations. The result being a better build project, a more intact community, and far less risk for the developer and their investors.

This video is approximately twelve minutes in length. For more information about town development pattern book approaches please go here.

When I first saw this waterfront property on Fox Hole Creek, I was enchanted by the two small cottages; one was clad in Flemish bond brick and the other was clad in white German shiplap siding. I wondered if they were all that remained after an estate house had been destroyed by fire but I soon discovered there never was a main house. I also discovered from the many entries in my primary reference book, “Where Land and Water Intertwine” by Christopher Weeks, that this small house has a big place in Talbot County’s architectural history. William Smythe sold the land known as Fox Hole to John Morris in 1676 and Morris’ grandson, Morris Orem, built the brick house.  One of his later descendants, Andrew Orem, retained a surveyor to confirm the tract’s size and Orem then patented the property as ’Orem’s Delight”. 

The brick house was built in 1720 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Immaculately restored and loving maintained by the current owners, the house is celebrating its 300th birthday this year. It is remarkable that its compact 20 x 25 foot story and a half footprint has never been incorporated into a larger house on this approximately 50 acre tract. 

You don’t have to be a historic preservation architectural buff to appreciate its many original details such as the brick gable north end with a glazed interlocking pattern above the two-brick wide belt course, the stepped water table brick around the perimeter and the late 18th century interior paneling and woodwork. The south end telescopes down to a one-story addition clad in white siding that replaced a much earlier wing that had been demolished in the early 1960’s. 

The front door of the brick house opens into a charming living-dining-kitchen area with wood floors, painted wood plank ceiling and windows on both exterior walls for water views.  The seating is grouped around the brick fireplace flanked by built-in cupboards, one slightly recessed and behind the sofa is a drop-leaf table for dining. The “L” shaped stair with white risers and wood treads has winders as it ascends to the upper floor. The other end of the room is a galley kitchen separated by a wall opening leading to a hall with a closet, front and rear exterior doors, and another door that opens into a suite containing  a bedroom, bath, and laundry room. 

The upper floor master bedroom is simply enchanting with its interior architecture defined by knee walls, sloped ceilings underneath the roof rafters, wood collar beams stained a slightly darker color than the wood floors and the doors with quarter circle tops leading to the walk-in closet and to the bathroom.  I loved the symmetry of the end gable windows being on axis with the bath and walk-in closet doors that are opposite the windows in the gable wall flanking the chimney, the front and rear knee walls with a dormer window opposite the other and the knee walls with pairs of doors to access storage under the eaves. The black iron bedframe is placed opposite the exposed corbeled brick chimney and the soft sage green walls, off-white trim and the light blue and sage green bedding create a soothing retreat.

The one-story “white house” has a totally different design for a delightful contrast with its much older companion. The entry door is slightly recessed into the lower wing of the telescoped massing to create a foyer with a closet that links the open plan living room and dining room to the screened porch. The living, dining and kitchen areas have pitched ceilings accentuated by stained wood collar beams, lightly stained shiplap wall covering and terra cotta floors for a great flow. In the living room,  double unit windows opposite each other, the higher windows on either side of the fireplace and the comfortable furnishings create an inviting space for relaxing by the fire for TV watching with family and friends. The end wall of the dining area has a centered French door with an arched window above and full height windows leading to the porch that spans the full width of the house. 

The kitchen has light wood cabinets, white appliances and the wall area above the upper cabinets provides display space for the owners’ collection of baskets, trays and other collectibles.  I especially liked how the small tile squares of the backsplash were the same terra cotta color as the floors. This house has two wonderful outdoor rooms-the main floor porch and the rooftop deck.   The porch has the same terra cotta tile as the interior rooms, a flat stained wood slat ceiling and wide framed openings for panoramic water views. The white house is located near the brick house but the latter’s side solid brick wall with small windows only at the second level provide privacy for both houses. The roof top deck above is accessed by an exterior stair so this space and its panoramic water views could be enjoyed by both houses’ owners.

Approximately fifty acres of farmland, woods and water views from the dock or the shoreline, numerous sites to build your own dream home, pool, a water pond popular with waterfowl and other wildlife and two existing houses that could become guest and/or caretaker houses makes this site unique. Even though it is impossible to state which house in Talbot County is the oldest, “Orem’s Delight” offers a rare opportunity to own one of a unique group of about thirteen houses that give a glimpse of life on the Eastern Shore in the 17th century.  

 

For more information about this property, contact Cornelia Heckenbach at Long and Foster Real Estate Inc., 410-745-0283 (o), 410-310-1229 (c) or info@corneliaheckenbach.com, “Equal Housing Opportunity”. For more photographs and pricing visit www.stmichaelsmdwaterfront.com or watch the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB5JnAQN4Kk , “Equal Housing Opportunity”. 

Spy House of the Week is an ongoing series that selects a different home each week. The Spy’s Habitat editor Jennifer Martella makes these selections based exclusively on her experience as a architect.

Jennifer Martella has pursued her dual careers in architecture and real estate since she moved to the Eastern Shore in 2004. Her award winning work has ranged from revitalization projects to a collaboration with the Maya Lin Studio for the Children’s Defense Fund’s corporate retreat in her home state of Tennessee.