Hamilton – Baltimore Magazine

Wax Atlas in Hamilton Rocks to Its Own Rhythm

Mike Unger — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 16:33:44 +0000

Owner Andy Phillips at Wax Atlas on Harford Road. —Photography by Christopher Myers

That a crate of records sits outside Wax Atlas in Hamilton is not a surprise. The place is, after all, a record shop. But the fact that everything inside the beat-up bin—“Property of City of Boulder” printed on the side—is free to anyone who wants it is the first sign that this place rocks to its own rhythm.

So does its owner, Andy Phillips, a self-described thrifter who can’t stand to see things go to waste. In 2017, he got into buying donated bulk items from places like Goodwill and the Salvation Army. That eventually led to Phillips, a music lover and former music critic, buying a storage unit full of more than 50,000 records, sight unseen. He started selling them online in 2018; Wax Atlas has been at its current location on Harford Road in the heart of Hamilton for about a year.

“I’d always been into vinyl, but I’m just a music person in general,” he says at the shop while the stereo plays a compilation CD of new wave and punk bands from New Zealand. “We certainly get some of the super nerd stuff, but we want to be very populist in our appeal because music is for everybody.”

With a giant stuffed Garfield holding a banjo in one front window, and a skeleton wearing a Slayer shirt in another, the store stocks about 10,000 records, along with CDs, DVDs, cassette tapes, books, T-shirts, and other merch for sale. Phillips is especially proud of the $1 section in the back corner, which attracts everyone from hardcore audiophiles to local kids.

Along with high-end albums from the likes of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, he also sells funk, jazz, metal, and just about every other genre. You probably won’t find a bold-name band in the free crate out front (Perry Como and the Lawrence of Arabia soundtrack were there for the taking when we visited in April), but there is something for everyone.

“I’d rather get you in the room with a bunch of different types of people than create a space where only the punks or indie snobs hang out,” he says. “I think, especially right now, people need to be in physical spaces.”

That philosophy has led to the latest chapter in Wax Atlas’ evolution. Each month, the store hosts concerts by local bands. There’s a small stage and audio system in the back, and the record racks are on wheels, so they can be moved to create space for the audience.

“We’re running it kind of like an old-school DIY collective,” says Phillips, who gives cover fees (usually about $10 each) to the performers. “The point of this is to create an authentic community space—and keep shit out of the trash.”

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Petal Pushers

Aaron Hope — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 15:54:00 +0000

With its first brick-and-mortar shop, Bramble Baking Co. blooms in Hamilton.

By Amy Scattergood

Photography by Julie Hove Andersen

Food & Drink

Petal Pushers

With its first brick-and-mortar shop, Bramble Baking Co. blooms in Hamilton.

By Amy Scattergood

Photography by Julie Hove Andersen

January 2022

at Bramble Baking Co. bakery in Hamilton, strewn like footprints from a happy childhood: gomphrenas and marigolds, nasturtiums and mums, scented geraniums and roses. They’re drying upside-down above the window into the bakery’s open kitchen, in buckets near the refrigerated case—loaded with the popular biscuit breakfast sandwiches, one of the few bakery items not bedecked with flowers—and in vases and bottles around the cozy dining room. Petals trellis up the sides of baker-owner Allie Smith’s small-batch cakes—some the size of hubcaps, some of kitchen timers—and scatter across the tops of tiny carrot Bundt cakes.

Opening Spread
Bramble staff, from left, Carrie Beha, Emma Kinney, Jaime Hacker, and Allie Smith.

But such artistry was not born overnight. In fact, in October, just a few weeks after Bramble opened as a tea-proper, brick-and-mortar-and-sugar bake shop, Smith, 30, closed the doors she’d spent five years working to open. “We’re learning how to bake even better for ya! Thanks for your understanding,” read a yellow construction-paper sign taped to the front door of the building, home to two previous bakeries (Batch Bake Shop, Hamilton Bakery), along a busy stretch of Harford Road.

Smith had pressed pause, scheduling a training and production day on a bright Wednesday to give the staff—most of whom started in September—time to reset, hone their already considerable skills, and come together as a team as they racked up trays of the popular baked goods. Clearly, the spot has since hit its stride.

Bramble’s calling cards come in the form of egg-yolk chocolate-chip cookies, chocolate tahini babka knots, purple sweet potato pies with toasty meringue, apple cider scones, chocolate cakes with cinnamon buttercream and salted caramel, and more—many festooned with flowers.

Inside the 2,100-square-foot bakery—which began life as a home-based cottage bakery and took hold in Baltimore’s farmers’ markets—one wall houses a burgeoning locavore marketplace. Cornflower-blue shelves are stacked with containers of spices from Burlap & Barrel and Diaspora Co., teas from Wight Tea Company, soaps and jars of raw honey from Hon’s honey, and gorgeous ceramic plates, made by Emma Kinney, the baker’s flower specialist, who also works as a florist. (Being able to effectively multitask is a given at any bakery, as is, for many bakers, a long and interesting resumé.) Bramble merch comes in the form of pretty mugs with the bakery’s signature tangle.

From top: A stack of rye-cocoa cookies; Emma Kinney holds fresh flowers; Bramble Baking Co. owner Allie Smith at work; custom decorated birthday cakes adorned with flowers; marigolds sit in a vase on the table; the bakery in sunlight

“We’ve put flowers on every cake since we opened the bakery. There was a synergy that made sense.”

“I started as a holiday vendor, and so I had to pick a name and become a thing,” says Smith.

She’s talking origin stories: of the bakery and its contents, of the community she’s assembled to run it, and of the direction they’re collectively working to travel toward. Because as the physical doors to Bramble finally opened, Smith has also been redefining the business model—moving toward a co-op structure—as well as the kitchen community itself, hiring a diverse staff of people who are similarly interested in living and working outside of conventional definitions. The goal? To create terrific baked goods and—simultaneously—a safe and happy working space.

Finished cakes brimming with blooms.

“My grandmother has a lot of lovely, comforting recipes that we still use in our home. But they're very Betty Crocker, like mayo-chocolate cake,” Smith says. At Bramble, she continues that tradition, but with elevated recipes that include: voluminous biscuits, botanically inspired cakes, homespun cookies, and earthy hand pies—all mostly made entirely by hand—inside a pastry case that often doubles as a flower garden.

“We’ve put flowers on every cake since we opened the bakery,” says Smith, recalling Bramble’s early days in the farmers' markets, where utilizing every bit of available produce is as much of a good habit as it is in traditional kitchens. “There was a synergy that made sense.”

Blond wood tables and mismatched chairs fill the dining room, still take-out only. Plans for cake-decorating workshops, done before the pandemic, were also put on hold, though the staff did manage to hold one on a farm. Inside the production kitchen sits an old deck oven, defunct since a previous bakery iteration, now the steampunk-style shelf for a row of wooden bannetons, or proofing baskets. Next to it are the two stacked Blodgett convection ovens that bake most everything in the bakery.

A bucket of fresh flowers at the ready.

The kind of vegetation you might get on your baked goods depends, naturally, on the whims of the season, the garden, the baker. In the fall, when Smith and Kinney favor fruits and vegetables along with the flowers, the cakes and pastries bear currant tomatoes, Jupiter grapes, husk cherries, sometimes wild raspberries on the vine.

Most of what’s in Bramble’s pastry-case comes in the form of a weekly bucket from Hillen Homestead, an urban farm wedged into a reclaimed site a few miles away from the bakery. The bakers trade a bucket of Hillen owner-farmer Maya Kosok’s scrap stems for a box of bakery items, a barter system built of sweet peas, celosia, and sage.

A whisk of apple cider Swiss buttercream; Smith decorating a frosted mini cake; a tray of just-baked buttermilk biscuits for the breakfast sandwiches; an array of baking pans; the oatmeal cream pies.

“It was fun to be in art museums parallel to baking. It’s a great place to soak up inspiration.”

In winter, Bramble concentrates on sturdier blooms, pressed petals, and preserved vegetation. “Our cakes become very viola-heavy,” says Smith. “Sometimes we do a pressed, fresh mélange,” says Kinney, which might include hydroponic, indoor-grown flowers, as well as those the staff presses and dries.

Smith, a Maryland transplant, started baking in part as a way of getting attuned to the local growing season. “When you move to a completely new region of the world, you’re often a little unmoored,” she says. Smith, who was raised in upstate New York and went to grad school for museum studies in Boston, relocated to Maryland for a job as an education coordinator at The Walters Art Museum in 2016. “I had a lot of time in my evenings, so I started baking obsessively, to keep myself occupied, and it became a way for me to become more familiar with mid-Atlantic produce.”

Smith used her income from the Walters to get that foothold and then began honing her baking skills at a commercial kitchen sharing space with a small catering business. In 2019, Bramble became Smith’s full-time job. “It was fun to be in art museums parallel to baking,” she says. “It’s a great place to soak up inspiration. The jury is still out on whether I’ll call cake ‘art’ or not.”

In those early days, Smith and her partner, Robin Rhodes, a full-time musician who plans to help with more events at the bakery when COVID-19 restrictions further lift, would take Smith’s baked goods to farmers’ markets, first the Cross Street market, then the 32nd Street market in Waverly. It was there that many of Smith’s current staff first encountered both baked goods and baker, including longtime staffers like pastry chef Jaime Hacker.

“I want to make rustic rye croissants and not matcha foam,” says Hacker of the career trajectory that brought her from culinary school to a series of restaurants where she found herself following trends rather than baking what she wanted. Hacker was the first person to join Smith’s team—Kinney, the second, came on just before the pandemic—and had been at a crossroads in her career.

“I have this classical French training, worked at enough [restaurants] to realize how toxic the industry was,” says Hacker. “I was thinking about what else to do with my life, and I reached out to Allie via Instagram to see if I could bake with her for fun.”

Bramble’s croissant program began with Hacker, who’s doing a tutorial on the laminated pastry for others in the kitchen. “I’m going on maternity leave in a week and a half, so I’m trying to teach everybody how to do this,” she says, feeding sheets of butterstacked dough through the machine’s roller, like laundry. Nearby, sheet pan racks are loaded with warm buttermilk biscuits and the roasted purple potatoes for pies, waiting for the next stage in the bakery’s production schedule.

Rahma Haji, a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Maryland’s Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program, would wake up early on Saturday mornings to make it to the market stand in time to get babkas, one of Bramble’s specialties. “People love pastries,” Haji says. “That’s literally how I started.” Now Haji spends those weekends behind the counter at the bakery, working front-of-house and further advancing personal pastry skills. “I love to bake; there’s an element of experimentation.”

The same can be said for Smith’s evolving business model, which Smith describes as “ambiguous by design.” This could also describe many of those who have gravitated to her kitchen.

“Bramble has grown into a more queer- and women- led space as we’ve grown our team,” says Smith. “Lots of women, but lots of non-binary folks. We’ve prioritized and will continue to prioritize a work environment that has care at its center, and I do think that there’s a certain queer sensibility and a feminist sensibility that allows us to stay true to that. I’m not sure how the two will inform each other yet, but that’s how we’ve naturally grown.”

Recently, there’s been a lot of discussion about giving back-of-house food service professionals their due, both financially and in terms job contentment. “I entered the food world when there was beginning to be this reckoning about that, and there’s more and more each year,” says Smith. “The pandemic created space for the folks in lower places to be heard.”

Drew Koshgarian arrived for her first day at the bakery with her own rolling pin. Koshgarian says that she wouldn’t have applied for a job at Bramble if Smith hadn’t included a focus on collaboration, responsibility-sharing, and respect in the job description. “Everybody’s become more aware of how things work when everybody feels valued,” says Koshgarian, who worked in bakeries in Los Angeles (and also did improv and stand-up comedy there). “It was wildly antiquated,” Koshgarian says of the restaurant industry. “Allie comes from an art history background; everybody in this kitchen is interesting.”

Clockwise from top, an old flower press; a frosted mini cake with currant tomatoes and dried flowers; fresh fruit and flowers; decorating a cake; the pain au chocolat; pressed flowers for decorating.

“The kind of community that Allie’s trying to create is very inclusive—in any possibly use of the word.”

Like Hacker and Koshgarian, Dayna Palmer logged time in the restaurant industry. “I focused my career in chocolate for the last six years, but this is the first time I’ve worked in a bakery since culinary school,” says Palmer. “The kind of community that Allie’s trying to create is very inclusive—in any possible use of the word.”

As she speaks, Palmer pours buttermilk into a well in the center of the butter-flour mixture for biscuits—the bakers produce 48 of them on weekdays, selling out in hours. She was the person who added chocolate bon bons to the bakery’s holiday repertoire, which also quickly sold out.

But no matter what delicious treats Smith adds to the menu, flowers will always be Bramble’s signature.

“Part of using flowers is honoring their temporary beauty,” says Kinney, as she carefully stores flattened petals and herbs in binder pages.

With additional flowers—all are non-toxic and/or edible—to feed the sweet workflow coming in from Two Boots Farm, Belvedere Farm Flowers, and Locust Point Flowers, there’s enough to load into an old wooden flower press, donated to the bakery in its nascent days.

“It’s very therapeutic,” says Felicity Lugay, a front-of-house staffer and Towson University special education major, as she lifts mum and tulip petals, leaves of salvia and sage. “When we run out of space [on the flower press], we just use some books,” says Kinney as Lugay brings some thick cookbooks (The Cake Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum; Roxana Jullapat’s Mother Grains; Claire Ptak’s The Violet Bakery Cookbook) down from the bakery’s shelves.

Kinney instructs folks to refrigerate their cakes, to keep them out of the sun for the sake of both flowers and buttercream—Smith keeps a blowtorch beside the KitchenAid to help control the temperature of the finicky frosting as the layer cakes are assembled—and recommends that fresh flower cakes are best given, and eaten, as soon as reasonably possible. This is not generally an issue.

Carrie Beha, who—like most of the Bramble staff—moves between front-and back-of-house work, also first learned about the bakery through the farmers’ market. Beha started working as a teenager and never went to college, instead eventually transitioning to a job at Moon Valley Farm, in Woodsboro, one of Bramble’s suppliers. “My heart lit up,” Beha says, after seeing the post on Good Food Jobs about Bramble. Of the bakery’s wider social project, Beha says: “Hopefully we can keep that balance. I think that’s going to be the best part of Bramble—and the hardest part.”

Because despite the garlands of flowers and the warm cookies, working in a bakery is not easy. The demands are high, and the hours are long: Smith starts work at 1:30 a.m. on Saturdays, and on the weekends someone is at the bakery starting at 2:30 or 3 a.m. “The only way to make this kind of work sustainable, when it’s so against our circadian rhythms, and places a lot of demands upon your body, is really to be honest with yourself and with each other,” says Smith. She spreads buttercream on a mini pumpkin layer cake, turning the cake stand around like a clock. “The pinnacle of honesty that we’ve been able to figure out for ourselves, is working toward this collaborative environment.”

Good sourcing, whether local or otherwise, has always been one of Bramble’s priorities.

“It was really important to me to work with local farms and local ingredients,” says Hacker, whose stellar rye croissants, using stone-ground rye flour from Castle Valley Mill in Doylestown, PA, are a masterwork, simultaneously buttery and flaky, and earthy from the whole grains. (All Bramble’s milk and buttermilk come from South Mountain Creamery in Middletown; the pie dough is made with flour from Small Valley Milling in Halifax, PA, and Migrash Farms, near Randallstown; those biscuits are made with with Plugra butter.) “Allie understands how important that is, when I had so many chefs who said, you’re lucky you get any flour at all.”

It’s not difficult to see how Bramble’s workplace setting translates from production table to pastry case. “The stuff I’m doing here,” says Hacker, “is some of the best stuff I’ve ever done.” “Kindness made me want to work here,” says Haji later, sitting outside on the bakery’s sun-drenched bench, summing things up with a baker’s deftness. “It’s great to be a part of something and feel valued, to be in a community. It puts everything into perspective.”

Because depending on where you are in the world, brambles can be roses or weeds, blackberries, even Arctic brambleberries—hardy and resilient, often grown in neglected spaces. And utterly beautiful, not unlike bakers themselves.

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Head to This Hamilton Brittle Business to Get Your Next Sugar Fix

Lauren Cohen — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 16:15:51 +0000

Natasha's Brittle comes in 40 different flavors. —Photography by Kate Grewal

Back in 2009, Natasha Wainwright was running a successful daycare center out of her Hamilton home. On a lark one day, she had her charges devise a business plan as a summer project, when one of the kids suggested starting a candy business.

“I started looking through cookbooks, and I couldn’t find candy, but there were brittle recipes,” recalls Wainwright. Of course, Wainwright had to help her kids cook because the candy was too hot to handle.

“The first brittle the kids came up with was a cashew brittle,” she says. “The brittle was such a success that the parents kept saying, ‘Do you have more?’ And I said to myself, ‘I’ve got something here.’”

Fast forward and Wainwright is now in her 11th year of owning Natasha’s Just Brittle. The business started online and now also has a brick-and-mortar storefront in Hamilton. Wainwright makes 40 types of brittle—from pumpkin spice to banana split—out of her B’More Made With Pride commercial kitchen, a shared makerspace that houses more than a dozen other small-batch businesses.

For now, her only full-time staff member is her daughter, Bria, but when large orders come in, she employs her former daycare children, now ranging in age from 13 to 23.

“My mission is to create jobs for the youth of Baltimore and help entrepreneurs stick together and stay in business,” says Wainwright, adding that she’s proud of the fact that hers is the only female- and Black-owned commercial kitchen in Baltimore. As Wainwright gets ready to expand her kitchen soon, there’s no turning back.

“People love candy, ” she says. “It has no racial barriers, and it’s in every culture. Candy is universal.”

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Review: Char’d City

Lauren Cohen — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 08:30:00 +0000

An array of pizzas at Char'd City. - Photography by Kate Grewal

What makes a great neighborhood restaurant? It’s a delicate combination of factors, to be sure. The setting needs to be welcoming, but not so casual that it can’t accommodate the odd special occasion. The food needs to have broad appeal, but still be interesting enough to warrant repeat visits. And the service needs to be efficient without sacrificing warmth. If a restaurant can meet all three of these objectives, it could be a contender.

We had reason to ponder this question after a recent dinner with friends at Char’d City, a new wood-fired pizza place in Hamilton. Open since September in the space formerly occupied by Clementine—once the gold standard in Baltimore neighborhood restaurants—Char’d City seems to be aiming for that same sweet spot.

Chef Yassine Rmadhnia, a native of Tunisia, and his wife, Sindee Gibson—both veterans of Baltimore’s hospitality industry—have altered the space with dark wood paneling, low lighting, a piano for the occasional live performance, and an open kitchen that showcases the restaurant’s wood-fired oven that burns at 900 degrees and cranks out pizzas in 90 seconds.

Those pies—with appropriately charred crusts—form the basis of the compact menu, which is rounded out with strombolis and a smattering of Tunisian-inspired dishes. We tried four pizzas—the crab-topped Charm City Pie, the mushroom-laden Tartufo, the spicy Sopressata Picante, and a classic Margherita—and all were tasty, though some flavor combinations succeeded better than others.

Best of the bunch was the Tartufo with its creamy base of ricotta and mozzarella, accented by the umami of black truffles and the zing of garlic and lemon zest.

Less successful was the Sopressata Picante, which was distinguished by the inspired use of harissa instead of tomato sauce but burdened by thick slabs of sopressata. A thinner, more neutral meat topping, like prosciutto, may have worked better. As for the Charm City Pie—a somewhat odd mix of mozzarella, ricotta, and Parmesan cheeses, Maryland blue crab, and cherry tomatoes (why?)—let’s just say that Matthew’s Pizza’s title of best crab pie in Baltimore remains safe.

The most impressive dish we tried wasn’t pizza at all, but an appetizer straight from Rmadhnia’s Tunisian heritage. The Tajine el Bey—a sort of Tunisian shepherd’s pie that layers ground beef, lamb, spinach, and ricotta—was a knockout: savory, flavorful, but somehow still light. It made us wish that Rmadhnia and Gibson would add more Tunisian-inspired plates to the menu. Minor menu quibbles aside, we have high hopes for Char’d City as a neighborhood favorite, mostly because of how fun it was to eat there.

]The restaurant has no liquor license, so alcohol is BYOB, and this helps keep the vibe relaxed and the bill affordable. The big-hearted service reinforces the gaiety. When one of our table’s half-eaten pies accidentally crashed to the ground, staff insisted on making a new one at no charge, proving that pizza can be replaced, but there’s no substitute for neighborly kindness.

›› CHAR’D CITY 5402 Harford Road, 443-760- 1501. Wed.-Thurs. 5-10 p.m., Fri. 5-11 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Sun. 11-8 p.m.

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Culture Club: Hamilton Returns to Baltimore, The Wiz at ArtsCentric, and Good News for Arena Players

Christine Jackson — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 14:00:00 +0000

News

Theater Renovations on the Horizon for Arena Players

On Dec. 4, the Maryland Board of Public Works approved a $300,000 grant for improvements to the Arena Players theater—the oldest continuously operating African-American theater in the country. Designated for “the acquisition, planning, design, construction, repair, renovation, reconstruction, site improvement, and capital equipping of Arena Players theatre,” the funds will go toward infrastructural updates to the beloved local cultural space.

Hamilton Returns to the Hippodrome

There’s good news for those that missed their shot to see Hamilton during its first visit to Baltimore this fall. The Hippodrome announced this week that the hit musical will return in summer 2021, taking the Eutaw Street stage from June 8-July 3.

Visual Art

Necessity of Tomorrow(s): Future Histories

Filling in the blanks in the stories of our past can help us create a better informed future. Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of The New York Times’ “The 1619 Project,” will explore this idea alongside activist and art collector Pamela J. Joyner and Baltimore artist Zoë Charlton at this latest installment of the BMA’s groundbreaking conversation series. 6-10 p.m. Dec. 17. The Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Dr.

Current Space’s 7th Annual Art Market

The holidays are creeping up quick, but this annual market featuring dozens of local artists and crafters can help you find the perfect thing for the art-lover on your list. Meet the people behind the works and browse items from talented local creators such as Press Press, Dana Bechert, and James Bouché. Dec. 14. Current Space, 421 N. Howard St.

Literature

Book Signing: Lost Restaurants of Baltimore

Restaurants come and go so quickly that it’s often hard to keep track of what used to be where. Some places, however, stick with us. Stop by Eddie’s of Roland Park to pick up a signed copy of Suzanne Loudermilk and Kit Waskom Pollard’s exploration of the places and plates that helped build Baltimore into the food city it is today. 2-4 p.m. Dec. 14. Eddie’s of Roland Park, 5113 Roland Ave.

Music

The High & Wides Album Release Show

This rip-roaring group from the Eastern Shore is back with a brand new album, Seven True Stories, and they’re ready to celebrate with Baltimore’s bluegrass-loving crowds. Pack into Creative Alliance to hear live renditions of new tracks such as “Reverie” and “Real America,” then grab your copy of this DIY collection of mostly true tales. 7:30 p.m. Dec. 19. Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave.

Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon with Amy Reid and Infinity Knives

Catch up with Catonsville’s Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon post-American Idol at this full night of local talent. Settle in and enjoy the good vibes from electronic artists Amy Reid and Infinity Knives before Harmon takes the stage with dreamy tracks such as “Almost Heaven” and “Learn to Love.” Doors 6 p.m. Show 7 p.m. Dec. 17. Ottobar, 2549 N. Howard St.

Theatre

The Wiz

There really is no place like home. Celebrate ArtsCentric’s new space by joining the company for their first show in Remington, a fitting trip to the land of Oz with The Wiz. This retelling of L. Frank Baum’s classic tale featuring an all-black cast swaps out the 1939 movie’s show tunes for a soul, R&B, and pop soundtrack you’ll be humming all the way home. Dec. 13 through Jan. 12. ArtsCentric, 2600 N. Howard St.

Film

Beyond Video Anniversary Party

Celebrate your friendly neighborhood video store’s first birthday with a party at Ottobar featuring vintage dance tunes and tons of giveaways from cinephile favorites such as A24 and Criterion. A few dollars gets you entry to the festivities, but generous partygoers can bring in a movie or two off the wish list in exchange for admission and raffle tickets, as well. 10 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Dec 13. Ottobar, 2549 N. Howard St.

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Review: Hamilton Tavern

Lauren Cohen — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 08:30:00 +0000

In the beginning (okay, summer 2008), a bar opened along Harford Road with homespun décor, a total smokeshow of a burger, and a killer selection of local craft beer. Its name was Hamilton Tavern, and it was good.

So good, in fact, that it was almost instantly lavished with laurels from this and many other publications: “Best Bar,” “Best Burger,” even “Best Bathroom” for its restrooms wallpapered with pages from literary classics. It was also—though we could hardly have known it at the time—very 2008.

In the summer of 2008, the economy was tanking and the conspicuous consumption of the early aughts was becoming passé. Coupled with the already underway farm-to-table boom, the recession birthed a generation of eateries that showcased a deliberately rustic aesthetic and a menu full of hearty classics served in skillets and Mason jars, a trend that romanticized Depression-era poverty for today’s audience. With antique farm tools adorning the walls, dark wood accents, and a menu full of pub grub, Hamilton Tavern neatly fit this bill, though, to its credit, it never seemed as contrived as some of its brethren.

But time marches on, the economy recovered (right?), and trends evolved. Perhaps more importantly, Hamilton Tavern’s original owners sold the business in 2016 to neighborhood resident Joel Ramos. So what is Hamilton Tavern, version 2019 like?

Pretty much the same, and that is mostly a good thing. The sign above the bar telling patrons not to discuss religion or politics is still there, and perhaps more needed than ever. Brewer’s Art’s Resurrection Ale is still on tap, and the menu still plays to the hits: Natty Boh-battered onion rings full of crunch and bigger than most dog collars; the Crosstown burger, a towering mass of Roseda Farm beef, melted cheddar, and “sticky-spicy” bacon; and crisp, hand-cut potato chips.

But there are subtle signs of change, too, most evident in the chef’s daily specials, which display an inventiveness and finesse that can approach fine dining.

On a recent visit, my dining companion and I split the difference between the classic and the contemporary with my friend ordering the burger, while I opted for the “Fishy Friday” special of pan-seared scallops with polenta gnocchi in a creamy broth studded with local corn and tomatoes, plus house-made chorizo. A mini patty pan squash, hollowed out and stuffed with scallop mousse, provided additional accompaniment.

The burger was its usual stellar self and arrived medium-rare—as ordered—an overabundance of salt in the patty its only flaw. The special, meanwhile, was a revelation, bursting with late-summer flavors and rich textures.

An appetizer special, a late summer plate of fried green tomatoes, encrusted with Utz potato chips and accompanied by corn, crab meat, and a drizzle of spicy chipotle mayo, was similarly decadent.

Executive chef Jeremy Price—a veteran of the late, great Clementine—gets credit for these creations, as he does for adding handmade pasta to the specials rotation and thoughtfully expanding the menu to include the occasional non-Western comfort food dish (a banh mi here, a ramen dish there). These touches help Hamilton Tavern feel relevant and fresh after more than a decade.

HAMILTON TAVERN 5517 Harford Rd., 410-426-1930. HOURS: Sun. 4:30-9 p.m., Mon.-Wed. 4:30-10 p.m., Thurs.-Sat. 4:30-11 p.m., Saturday lunch 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m., Sunday brunch 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. PRICES: Appetizers: $6-12; entrees: $7-24.

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Don’t Throw Away Your Shot to Catch Hamilton at the Hippodrome

Christine Jackson — Wed, 08 May 2019 11:05:00 +0000

It’s finally happening. Hamilton, the award-winning, record-breaking musical about one of America’s most fascinating founding fathers, is on its way to the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore.

Those who signed up through the one-week Ticketmaster Verified Fan registration will have the jump on getting their shot at seats, but that’s not the only way to make sure you see this Broadway smash. For those willing to do things the old-fashioned way, there will be a limited number of tickets available at the Hippodrome box office. Get there early to try to avoid those high(er)-priced resale tickets online.

Hamilton won’t take the stage until June 25, but in the meantime, we caught up with cast member Olivia Puckett, who plays Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds, to talk about touring, telling stories, and what it’s like to have history’s eyes on you.

What has it been like to tell this story?
It has been an honor and, honestly, a dream come true. This show has shifted the global impact of musical theater and made the medium accessible in an unprecedented way. It’s always exciting when I meet people after the show and they normally don’t see musicals but they felt compelled to see Hamilton.

What are you looking forward to in bringing Hamilton to Baltimore?
It’ll be exciting to bring Hamilton to a city that hasn’t yet hosted the show, especially a city with as rich a history as Baltimore. Plus I want to eat all the seafood—all day, every day.

What challenges are there in touring with the show as opposed to performing in one place for a prolonged period of time?
Tour definitely comes with a unique set of challenges. The constant moving around can be a shock to the system, so I have to be diligent about establishing routines and finding even a tiny bit of stability when possible. Having my dog, Queen Esther Solange Puckett, on the road with me certainly helps. This is my third time touring, and even though I’ve gotten pretty used to the challenges that come along with it, it’s always exciting getting to explore cities I might not have otherwise.

How is this show different from your previous experiences?

The diversity, inclusivity, and representation in this show is different from so many of my experiences in the past. It’s rewarding and gratifying. I get to really own my space as a brown woman, and it rocks.

Why do you think Hamilton resonates with so many people?

It is a fundamentally an American story that people are somewhat familiar with, but the modern music and diverse cast that reflects the American experience today make it accessible to audiences and makes them interested in history in a new way.

What have you learned from this show?

I won’t lie and say I knew a ton about U.S. history prior to joining this cast. If I had to take a test on Alexander Hamilton’s life, I would hopefully get an A now!

What parts of your character do you most identify with?

I definitely relate to Peggy’s sassiness and anxiety. Maria is a bit of a stretch for me, but I love her tenacity and willingness to do what she must to survive in this crazy world. I hope people are inspired by the women in this show. Without female figures, none of these men would have accomplished even half of what they did.

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Review: Emma’s Tea Spot

Lauren Cohen — Fri, 11 May 2018 10:08:00 +0000

Photography by Christopher Myers

Even though we cut ties with our British overlords in 1776, a strong strain of Anglophilia has remained alive and well in America, occasionally even infiltrating the mainstream (see also: Abbey, Downton). Another flare-up is inevitable this month as American actress Meghan Markle marries Prince Harry, fulfilling the dream of many by going from Yankee commoner to a member of the House of Windsor. If all the royal hoopla makes you pine for Blighty—or if you’re just looking for a good cup of tea and a hearty sandwich in charming surroundings—head to Emma’s Tea Spot.

Open since last fall, Emma’s bills itself as a “proper British experience,” and it’s hard to argue with that. Co-owned and run by Emma Canoles, a native of Surrey, England, with an assist from her husband, Benjamin, the restaurant’s décor—including a replica of a red British Telephone booth—proclaims its heritage. Emma’s also sells British essentials such as Cadbury chocolate and Marmite.

Perhaps more importantly, it offers the kind of tea experience familiar to Brits but foreign to Americans. Yes, Emma’s serves a formal High Tea ($27.50/person) with towers of pastries and dainty sandwich triangles, but it can also serve what Brits refer to as “a good cuppa”—an unfussy cup of a comforting brew, often augmented with milk or cream. Along with that come everyday edibles, such as sarnies (sandwiches), butties (sandwiches with cold bread and hot filling), biscuits (cookies), soups, salads, quiches, meat pies, and other pub favorites (though, sadly, no fish and chips).

One recent blustery day, I met a friend for an early dinner and split a pot of tea for two ($10.95). Eschewing the standard Earl Grey and British breakfast, we ogled exotic flavors such as tangerine ginger and coconut-lemon oolong. We opted for the latter and found its gentle sweetness irresistible. That the pot arrived covered in a knitted tea cozy and was accompanied by a plate of six house-made biscuits was a bonus.

For sandwiches, we went traditional, selecting tuna and cucumber and egg and cress, each served with a choice of house-made coleslaw, fruit salad, or crisps (chips). Served on flour-dusted, hearty white rolls baked just up the street at Batch Bake Shop, the sandwiches were thoroughly British, by which we mean thoroughly doused in mayonnaise. And though that may not sound enticing, something about the sturdy crustiness of the bread, the creaminess of the mayonnaise against the egg and tuna, and the bright clarity of the coconut tea combined to satisfy.

Next time, we agreed to try other distinctly British flavor combos such as the cheese and pickle sarnie or the banger (sausage) butty. We also made a mental note to return for the house-made scones.

There are plenty of reasons to return besides the food. In just the few months it has been open, Emma’s has become a community anchor, hosting book clubs, cooking classes, First Friday BYOB nights, and story time for kids. In this way, Emma’s is both a proper British experience and a proper Baltimore one, too.

›› EMMA’S TEA SPOT 5500 Harford Rd., 410-444-1718. Hours: Mon. 10:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Tues. closed. Wed-Fri. 10:30 a.m.- 6:30 p.m. Sat. 9 a.m.-4p.m., Sun. 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

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Slice of Life

Jess Mayhugh — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 08:30:00 +0000

Back in the day, old-time Baltimore bakeries were a dime a dozen. Every neighborhood had at least one. But along with streetcars and milk deliveries, they faded from public life in the latter half of the 20th century as consumers traded daily trips to mom-and-pop businesses for one-stop shopping at supermarkets.

Happily, if you look in some of the less gentrified corners of the city, you can still find enduring examples. With its linoleum floors, baskets of breads behind the counter, and packages tied up with red and white bakery twine, Fenwick Bakery, located along Harford Road in Northeast Baltimore, is one such sweet spot.

The bakery originated when Swiss immigrant Ernest Uebersax and his wife, Alvena Buttner, opened a bakeshop in southwest Baltimore in 1913. In the ensuing decades, the bakery hopscotched around town before settling in its current location in 1971, by then with three of Ernest and Alvena’s five children at the helm. In the mid-’90s, when that second generation was ready to retire, the bakery was sold to longtime employees Al Meckel and Claudette Wilson, who still run it today using the original recipes.

Featuring cakes, pies, donuts, Danishes, breads, rolls, and cookies, the shop’s offerings are unfussy but plentiful. Most items—like the fruit-filled pastries and glazed donuts that glisten under the display case lights—are baked daily. (If you want to be the hero of your office coffee break, head in early to snag a tray of gooey pecan rolls.) Small batches of white breads and rolls are also produced daily, while the popular raisin bread and the traditional rye loaves are baked on Wednesdays and Fridays, respectively. But anything can be made to order, including decorated special-occasion cakes in varying shapes (round, sheet, tiered), sizes (cupcake-small, sheet cake-large), and flavors (carrot, devil’s food, and chocolate, among others).

It’s a pity that Fenwick’s signature peach cake—fat, juicy, local peaches nestled on a shallow tart-like crust and burnished with brown sugar—is available only in summer. But its fleetingness just makes it more precious. Mark your calendars for next year.

In the meantime, sate your sweet tooth with Fenwick’s pies, which are another highlight. A lattice-topped cherry pie oozed enough pleasantly tart cherries to qualify as a guilt-be-gone serving of fruit. And Fenwick does a brisk business in apple, apple crumb, pumpkin, pecan, and mince pies during the holidays. Also of note for harried holiday hosts and hostesses, Fenwick sells its own stuffing mixes in one-pound bags, as well as unbaked pie shells. Because if it can’t be homemade, at least it can be hometown made. Don’t worry, we won’t tell.

›› Fenwick Bakery 7219 Harford Rd. 410-444-6410, Mon.-Fri. 7 a.m.-5 p.m., Sat. 7 a.m.-4 p.m., Closed Sun.

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Hamilton To Make Baltimore Debut In 2018/19 Season

Gabriella Souza — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 15:27:00 +0000

State of the Art

Web Intern — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 08:30:00 +0000

MOVING ON: My husband and I lived in Bolton Hill for the past seven years, and moved to this house about a year and a half ago. We liked this area because you could buy a single-family home and it was one of the only parts of the city that was racially diverse. When we bought the house, it had basically been flipped and remodeled, so all we’ve done is re-paint and replace the pillars on the front porch.

LISTEN TO YOUR ART: Different contemporary artists inspire me. I research art and art history all the time.

PLAYING FAVORITES: I like to use certain products like Farrow & Ball or Benjamin Moore paints, because I like their quality and viscosity. The ceiling in the living room is painted with Farrow & Ball’s “arsenic” color, which is a historical hue that the impressionists used. It actually used to be poisonous, so Farrow & Ball reproduced it in an obviously nonpoisonous capacity.

FOLLOW ALONG: A lot of my style is based off of my understanding of art history, but I definitely look at blogs like Design Sponge. I also follow a lot of people on Instagram, like Emily Henderson—she’s a stylist for Target—and Justina Blakeney.

DO IT YOURSELF: Tiles are a big obsession of mine. I really want Islamic tiles, which come in eight different shapes that you put together to create an Islamic arabesque. The problem is that I want them in all white and I haven’t found anyone who does that, so I’ve been thinking of making them myself.

ANTIQUE APPRECIATION: I shop almost exclusively at Goodwill, on Craigslist, and in antique stores, but I get some things from places like HomeGoods, Target, and Ikea. I really love Goodwill, especially the Timonium location, because I always find really nice pieces there that I can buy for like $4. Then I have a high-quality item that I don’t have to worry about something happening to. I am also constantly scouring Etsy and other websites for vintage textiles.

LOCAL FLAVOR: I’ve been collecting artwork for a very long time, that’s my passion. Some of it is done by me, but a lot of it is by local artists or friends of mine who are also local. Most of the art in the house is done by women. I’m really focused on buying art from individuals I know and want to support.

RARE FIND: I found this Byzantine space heater at a flea market in Western Maryland and I was just obsessed with it. I was like, “I need this enormous brass thing.” You can use it to make Turkish coffee, but we’ve never actually done that.

COUNTING SHEEP: I love sheepskin and I have them in many rooms. When I was little, my great aunt and uncle spent a lot of time in Australia and brought back sheepskin for us, so maybe it’s just the memory of that. But also, texturally, it’s just neutral and nice to mix in with things. I hope my house isn’t starting to look like Game of Thrones.

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Leslie Odom, Jr. Discusses What’s Next After Hamilton

Gabriella Souza — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 12:00:00 +0000

By now, you’ve likely heard of Hamilton, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical about founding father Alexander Hamilton that re-imagines our history through beat boxing, and partially sung, rap-style dialogue. You also might have heard of Leslie Odom, Jr., who, before he left the show in July, won a Tony award for his portrayal of anti-hero Aaron Burr.

Odom makes his Baltimore debut October 22 with a performance at the Modell Performing Arts Center at The Lyric, where he will join The Roots at a fundraiser benefiting The Journey Home, Baltimore City’s plan to make homelessness rare and brief. He joined us to talk about his new album, what’s next, and the impact the show has had on his life and our history.

What’s life been like for you post Hamilton?
It was a very busy summer. The week after I left, I was in a small venue in New York City with my band, the same guys that I’m going to play with for the concert in Baltimore. We went from 1,400 seats to 120 seats or so at this small club called The McKittrick. It was the first time I’d put together a live show after having done Hamilton, so trying to also find versions of the favorite songs that make sense in the set that we do and develop arrangements from my [2016 self-titled album] as well. All summer it’s been music, playing around the country. It’s been great.

There’s got to be a big difference between being in a show like Hamilton and a solo performance.
It’s very different. The hardest thing about doing eight Broadway shows a week is the physical toll. It also becomes a real sacrifice for your family because having one day off a week means you’re not traveling much to see family. I don’t have children yet, but we had people in our show with children who didn’t put their kids to bed for two years because we were due at the theater at 7:30, rain or shine. It’s worth it if you’re doing something like Hamilton. All of us were able to make it make sense for ourselves because we were doing something that was making a real difference.

But there’s nothing like grinding away at your body for over 400 shows, which is how many I’d done by the time I finished. Now, my body feels a lot different because it healed over the summer. [Singing] is a different challenge because I’ll come out at a concert and do 10 or 12 songs or sometimes more in a row. But it was time to take a break from the physical toll of the show, that’s for sure.

Your contract was up in July, but it sounds like the physical part of performing might have also contributed to you leaving.
I left the same night that [creator and star] Lin Manuel Miranda left. You really have your choice when you’re going to jump off the ride because the show ain’t going anywhere. It’s going to outlive us all. It just felt like the end of something for me. It felt like my greatest contribution had already been made, my greatest growth spurts had probably happened, and I’d probably learned as much as I was going to learn. It was time to do the next scary thing.

What people have to remember is that it was not a foregone conclusion that Hamilton was going to be this huge success and we were going to win awards. We signed up to be a part of the development of a show that we believed in years before people knew what it was. It was, at times, a really scary thing to turn down work to be a part of Hamilton, but it paid off. When I say that what I mean is that it pays to follow your heart, follow your instincts. I had the same inclination to step off the stage to focus on music and other opportunities that were coming my way. The pull was as strong as it was when I first felt that pull to clear my schedule so nothing would get in the way of me being Aaron Burr.

You even had to leave a TV show to play Aaron Burr. What was it for you that made you realize you wanted to be a part of Hamilton?
There were so many things, but primarily, it can all be boiled down to a genius, once-in-a-lifetime piece of writing. What Lin had written was just so special and I connected to it in a way that I’d never connected to a new work. Hamilton for some of us gets placed beyond the greatest musicals of all time to one of the greatest pieces of theater of all time, even one of the greatest pieces of writing of all time. It’s going down in the annals of history.

I can pick up any piece of great work right now from the library—Shaw, or Shakespeare, or O’Neill, or August Wilson—and perform it. But for something to come to you that’s never been performed, a brand new piece of work that is that good, that is that special, it was like nothing could get in the way of this, even if the show tanked. West Side Story wasn’t very successful it’s first time around, the same with most of Stephen Sondheim’s works, so I didn’t know if people were going to get Hamilton, if people were going to like it. But it was like, even if this thing closes after two weeks, so what? Someday, somebody’s going to see that this is great.

When you say the show is going to outlive us all, do you mean have a monumental Broadway run?
I’m actually talking about when it leaves Broadway, when that day comes, which will take a very, very long time. But then it goes to high schools and it goes to middle schools. It becomes like Oklahoma—that’s our dream, that it becomes something that’s done everywhere, all over the country and all over the world. Kids and teenagers get a hold of this thing and make it their own.

You’ve talked about the role of Burr as being such a wonderful opportunity, especially as an actor of color.
I’ve said that Lin showed me through glorious writing that there was something expected of me. Now, hundreds and hundreds, thousands maybe, of actors are going to take on that role over the next 25 to 30 years or more. Young actors are going to pick up that script and find what I found. It demands something of you that you maybe never knew you were capable of, that changes your view of yourself, and what you’re limitations are. When people see you perform, it also changes what they expect from you, and what they think you’re capable of.

Before this show, I used to get discouraged because I could just feel the limitations from the industry and what they thought I could do and what they thought performers that looked like me could do. It was so boring to me, and safe and tiresome. Lin came and blew the lid off of things. He just dismantled it. And we were on stage living out our dreams, as performers, as men and women. It was incredible.

Have you had a chance to let it all sink in?
I think it’s begun to a bit, though I’m not sure that it all has. What’s begun to sink in is that we’re always going to be ambassadors for the show. That will lessen over time, but we can’t go anywhere without people stopping us and telling us what they think about the show. And I mean anywhere—it’s really all over the world now. My wife and I have done some international traveling and we’re getting stopped in airports and restaurants. I’m comfortable with that, but I don’t think that the show is done making its mark.

Source

Making Lemonade

Jess Mayhugh — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 08:30:00 +0000

For more than 20 years, the property at the corner of Montebello Terrace and Harford Road in Lauraville has sat vacant, a spot of blight in the neighborhood’s otherwise charming business district. But there may soon be new life on the lot, as the site is transformed into a commercial kitchen open to community members and businesses alike.

The idea stems from the success of the Tuesday evening farmers’ market, which has been offering both fresh produce and prepared foods on the lot—once a gas station with a three-bay service garage—since 2009.

“It became apparent that there were so many people who wanted to participate [as vendors] in our little evening market, but they had no access to a commercial kitchen,” says Regina Lansinger, the director of Hamilton-Lauraville Main Street. “This would be answering a big need. It would allow [potential vendors] to do not just our market, but any farmers’ market, and not just farmers’ markets but their own businesses.”

The project, officially called Main Street Kitchen at the Lot, could cost upwards of $700,000 and is still in the fundraising stage. But it has already secured a pledge of $250,000 from the state, and an additional $50,000 from local backers. Part of that $50,000 came from local businesses that are selling paper lemons for $5 donations, an effort that plays off the black and yellow mural painted on the old garage that reads, “Help turn this [lemon] into LEMONADE.”

Once completed, Lansinger says the 1,800-square-foot building will house a health department-approved kitchen with multiple ovens, cooktops, fryers, tables, and workspaces. Workstations will be rentable for an hourly fee, and she hopes the space will be used by both professionals and amateurs looking for extra room for special projects. Main Street Kitchen also will become the latest community food space in Baltimore, following B-More Kitchen on York Road and Baltimore Food Hub in East Baltimore.

Richard Marsiglia, president of the board of Hamilton-Lauraville Main Street, says the kitchen is part of a broader plan for the site. “The main goal of the project is to become a town square,” he says. “There’ll always be something happening at the lot.”

Source

Video: Tour Baltimore’s Hamilton-Lauraville Neighborhood

Meredith Herzing — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 08:30:00 +0000

For more on Baltimore’s “Hidden Gem Neighborhoods,” pick up the April issue of Baltimore magazine, on newsstands now.

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A Body Shop Reborn

Jess Mayhugh — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 08:30:00 +0000

The crooked walls might have put off another buyer. Or the leaking roof. Or the bullet holes in the windows.

“It was the ugliest building I’ve ever seen,” 39-year-old decorative painter and artist Kelly Walker says of the 5,500-square-foot residential and commercial building on the far western edge of Mt. Vernon.

“It was this sketchy, bad-energy [auto] body shop that had been abandoned for many years,” Walker says. It had been renovated and converted to apartments, then foreclosed on and abandoned yet again.

Metal ductwork, block-glass windows and an exposed-brick wall make the most of the industrial feel; Walker in her faux-finishing studio/workshop, where her art lines the walls - Photography by Vince Lupo

The ugliest building, maybe, but Walker had always wanted a body shop, for reasons both sentimental—her grandfather had once owned one—and practical. The big bay door that fronts the “work” side of the property, for example, would come in handy when she needed to paint indoors (think giant canvases). Her faux-finishing firm, Artstar Custom Paintworks, was booming, and Walker “was bursting the seams” of her five-bedroom Hamilton home. Plus, living at work would be ideal for someone who often find inspiration at odd hours.

The property’s asking price was out of Walker’s range, her then-girlfriend hated it on sight, and there were significant hurdles to buying and renovating it. Even so, “I knew it was meant to be as soon as I walked in,” Walker says.

So she pushed ahead in 2013 with plans to purchase the property, which had attracted multiple buyers in spite of its flaws. What followed was a series of lucky breaks, starting with the city re-designating the property as residential rather than commercial, allowing Walker to secure a mortgage. More good fortune: Walker secured a loan that allowed her to outbid other buyers. And despite liens on the property from a previous owner, the title company took a risk and went ahead and closed it. Says Walker: “It was miracle after miracle after miracle with this place.”

One of Walker’s favorite spaces, the den includes a used wood-burning stove she bartered for. - Photography by Vince Lupo

Though she describes herself as “always creative and always weird,” Walker had, as a child, never seriously considered a future in the arts. Growing up in a small mill town in Indiana, she says, “I didn’t know that people were actually artists.” When her mother’s remarriage pulled her into a new social orbit in North Carolina, Walker experienced the trappings of wealth for the first time. “I went to cotillion, learned to curtsy and use silverware—it was complete culture shock,” she says. But by the early 1990s, Walker was struggling to fit in. “I’m gay, which I don’t think matters at all, but it was a big deal [there]. In North Carolina, you can’t be anything other than straight and narrow,” she says.

Following her favorite band to Baltimore in 1994, she found a city that was “a perfect mix of blue-collar working class, with a little Southern charm, and then this cutting edge of culture and art and wealth,” she says.

She decided to stay, taking a job as a bike messenger, where one day in 2001 she made a delivery to a faux-finishing company that would shift her life path. Peeking into the company’s showroom, Walker was awed by its columns, gold-leaf-embellished walls, and vivid mural. “It was just breathtaking. I’m like, ‘What do you guys do in here?’”

Keeping the kitchen simple, Walker went with weathered-teak cabinets from Ikea. - Photography by Vince Lupo

Walker soon discovered the company had an open apprentice position and, though she had no formal training, she landed the job, starting with “taping and schlepping and assisting,” and learned the ins and outs of faux-finishing. Along the way, her artistic talents blossomed.

Just a year later, Walker founded Artstar and, by 2004, she’d established herself as a subcontractor for other painting companies, often picking up the less appealing types of restorations that experienced painters avoid—“It was a good way to learn color theory and how to think on my feet,” she says.

By the time Walker purchased the Mt. Vernon property, she’d long since established herself as a decorative painter in her own right, attracting clients whose tastes run toward the “sophisticated, traditional with a modern-leaning aesthetic.” Most often, her work involves decorative plastering or using paint and plaster to “make a space feel old,” she says.

A reclaimed wood table in the small dining area serves as a functional space to meet with clients; As a passionate cyclist, Walker includes space for her bikes in her office. - Photography by Vince Lupo

Renovating her new home allowed her to use not only her artistic talents but also “everything I learned all these years being in all these spaces and working with incredibly talented designers,” she says. With a budget of about $80,000 and the help of a general contractor she met on a job site, Walker set out to convert the space into a three-bedroom home and workspace that was “modern, clean, and comfortable.”

Job one was to correct the building’s most egregious problems, including an interior design she calls “a toxic nightmare.” Earlier renovations had left oddities that included a bedroom only accessible by ladder, too-high kitchen counters, and a concrete walkway upstairs with no barrier to prevent a hapless visitor from falling into the living room below.

In the kitchen, which lacked cabinets, Walker kept the general layout but added weathered teak cabinets from Ikea. Nearby, she updated a bathroom, easily accessible from the den, where she often meets with clients. Upstairs, Walker extended the walkway and added a low wall to create a loft for the master bedroom.

The master bedroom includes one of the home’s quirkier elements: a “walk-in” closet that requires you to duck to enter - Photography by Vince Lupo

Throughout the home, exposed-brick walls, metal air ducts, and massive steel beams tie in with the building’s industrial roots, as do the concrete floors, which Walker faux-finished to mimic acid-stained concrete. New and vintage elements such as a custom-built reclaimed-wood table, two used wood-burning stoves, and old schoolhouse doors add to the coolly distressed effect.

On the walls, Walker opted for white paint instead of a decorative finish in almost every space. “It just feels so clean and big,” she explains. One exception is an accent wall in the living room, faux-finished to incorporate the natural distress of the original wall. Another is a stunning mural in the building’s entryway, hand-drawn by tattoo artist Brett Burnham, whose work is also on exhibit on Walker’s skin.

Walker also employed paint for more subtle means: A two-inch black stripe painted along the front of the baseboards visually compensates for the building’s slightly crooked walls, for example.

An accent wall in the foyer, hand-drawn by Walker’s tattoo artist, includes a farm scene—a subtle nod to Walker’s Midwestern roots - Photography by Vince Lupo

The finished space is so unique it’s been on the must-see list for groups of art students.

“It’s a really nice balance between the industrial elements that already existed” and the palette and texture Walker chose, says Cara Ober, an artist, professor, writer, and editor at online arts journal BmoreArt. As part of a professional development course she teaches at Maryland Institute College of Art, Ober brings students to visit studios around the city and Walker’s residence and studio is “hands down their favorite,” says Ober, who in the early 2000s held an art show in what is now Walker’s garage studio.

So far, Walker is happy with the results, even though she knows the home will always have its quirks (like a master bedroom closet that requires you to duck before entering). That’s fine with her. “I love the imperfections,” Walker says, turning to her favorite quote to sum up her experience: “Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. That has been the mantra for this renovation.”

Source

Hamilton – Baltimore Magazine

Wax Atlas in Hamilton Rocks to Its Own Rhythm

Petal Pushers

With its first brick-and-mortar shop, Bramble Baking Co. blooms in Hamilton.

Food & Drink

Petal Pushers

With its first brick-and-mortar shop, Bramble Baking Co. blooms in Hamilton.

By Amy Scattergood

Photography by Julie Hove Andersen

January 2022

Opening Spread Bramble staff, from left, Carrie Beha, Emma Kinney, Jaime Hacker, and Allie Smith.

From top: A stack of rye-cocoa cookies; Emma Kinney holds fresh flowers; Bramble Baking Co. owner Allie Smith at work; custom decorated birthday cakes adorned with flowers; marigolds sit in a vase on the table; the bakery in sunlight

“We’ve put flowers on every cake since we opened the bakery. There was a synergy that made sense.”

Finished cakes brimming with blooms.

A bucket of fresh flowers at the ready.

A whisk of apple cider Swiss buttercream; Smith decorating a frosted mini cake; a tray of just-baked buttermilk biscuits for the breakfast sandwiches; an array of baking pans; the oatmeal cream pies.

“It was fun to be in art museums parallel to baking. It’s a great place to soak up inspiration.”

Clockwise from top, an old flower press; a frosted mini cake with currant tomatoes and dried flowers; fresh fruit and flowers; decorating a cake; the pain au chocolat; pressed flowers for decorating.

“The kind of community that Allie’s trying to create is very inclusive—in any possibly use of the word.”

Head to This Hamilton Brittle Business to Get Your Next Sugar Fix

Review: Char’d City

Culture Club: Hamilton Returns to Baltimore, The Wiz at ArtsCentric, and Good News for Arena Players

News

Visual Art

Literature

Music

Theatre

Film

Review: Hamilton Tavern

Don’t Throw Away Your Shot to Catch Hamilton at the Hippodrome

Review: Emma’s Tea Spot

Slice of Life

Hamilton To Make Baltimore Debut In 2018/19 Season

State of the Art

​Leslie Odom, Jr. Discusses What’s Next After Hamilton

Making Lemonade

Video: Tour Baltimore’s Hamilton-Lauraville Neighborhood

A Body Shop Reborn

Opening Spread
Bramble staff, from left, Carrie Beha, Emma Kinney, Jaime Hacker, and Allie Smith.

Leslie Odom, Jr. Discusses What’s Next After Hamilton