Custom built with exceptional detail and perfection, this Ted Visnic architectural masterpiece (Pennsylvania Farmhouse) is one of a kind, showcasing locally quarried carderock stone.

Gatherings large and small will gravitate to the gourmet kitchen and oversized entertainer’s island and breakfast bar embellished with pendants above, granite top, and furniture-style turned legs. Custom-designed wood cabinetry on the island is contrasted with the light painted cabinets and a decorative tile splash that wrap the perimeter.

Upstairs, a back secondary stair rises up to access five en-suite bedrooms, including a lavish Owner’s suite and sitting room with three walk-in closets, custom organizers, and a sumptuous partners luxury bath.

Downstairs, there is something for everyone of every age, offering indoor fun for every season. Currently used as an exercise room, a walk-out en-suite bedroom and full bath spaces are privately situated with full daylight windows and an atrium door to the lower patio.

Additional features include a Control4 home automation system, energy-efficient geothermal heating and cooling, and a whole home generator (60kv) tied to 1, 000 gallons of propane. Come home to perfected living on over 5.5 acres near 10 schools in between DC and Baltimore!

Contact: Creig Northrop

CNorthrop@NorthropRealty,com

410.884.8351

Imagine living in a house where a famous movie or television show was filmed. Or sleeping under the same roof that a Duchess or former president once stayed. There are two Guilford homes that fit the bill, and they’re up for auction next month.

The first house is located at 4001 Greenway and is used in the final season of the Netflix series House of Cards where the show spent 10 months filming. The tudor-style house has a total of 52 rooms including seven bedrooms with six-and-a-half bathrooms.

“It’s an awesome house, but it takes a long time to show it,” jokes realtor Noah Mumaw of Monument Sotheby’s Realty. “I think it’s pretty cool to say you live in a house where House of Cards filmed their final season.”

The starting bid for the home that was also formerly the A.S. Abell Estate and home to the founder of The Baltimore Sun in the 1850s is $900,000. The original property was 300 acres that was eventually broken up into what is now the town of Guilford.

“This was back in the day when this was considered the county, which is kind of funny,” Mumaw said. “The house is in really good shape—the original moldings are still in tact. It’s so awesome that such a prominent family used to live here.”

Just a few blocks away is another house that fell into Mumaw’s lap that has a unique history. “The cool thing about this house is the different owners that lived here,” he said. The colonial house at 4105 Underwood Road sits on more than one-acre of land—which is a lot for Guilford—and has had everyone from inventors to the son of a U.S. president live here.

This home was originally built in 1922 for Otto Dieffenbach, who invented the drinking straw. The home was then sold to the Taliaferro family who founded the American Can Company. From there, it was sold to Clarence Miles, the founding partner of the law firm Miles & Stockbridge, who brought the St. Louis Browns to Baltimore and named them the Baltimore Orioles. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor also frequently visited the home as they were close friends of the Miles family.

Bruce Livie was next on the long list of famous owners of this house. Livie was one of the founders of the Baltimore Colts and brought them to Memorial Stadium that was once located on 33rd Street (makes sense because the house was walking distance from the stadium).

The Underwood house is up for auction, as well, and the opening bid starts at $450,000. Aside from its famous owners, it has seven bedrooms, six-and-half bathrooms, six working fireplaces, and a black-bottom pool in the backyard.

“I think that’s the coolest thing about this house is all the unique owners who found their way to this house over the course of history,” Mumaw said. “It’s crazy how it keeps going on and on. For one house to have one of these owners would be very special, but to have four or five of these unique owners, I’ve never seen anything like it before. This would be comparable to winning the Mega Millions.”

As you trace the footsteps of Baltimore’s literary luminaries—Poe, Mencken, etc.—on the Maryland Humanities Council’s Mt. Vernon walking tour—you move from brownstone to brownstone. Range farther afield and the city’s diverse architecture becomes apparent, from narrow row houses to Guilford’s stately mansions.

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Penrose Street

The classic photo of women and children scrubbing their marble steps—a trademark of Baltimore architecture made possible by the high-quality white marble quarried in Cockeysville—was shot by renowned Baltimore Sun photographer A. Aubrey Bodine. Done properly, the ritual marble stoop cleaning process included scrubbing with a pumice stone and Bon Ami powder.

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Canton Row Homes

In the early 1900s, the neighborhood’s row houses were home to Irish and Eastern Europeans who worked at the port and canneries.

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Guilford

Each home in this old-money neighborhood possesses its own distinct charm.

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Old-School Artforms

In 1913, a Czech immigrant grocer named William Oktavec painted his screen door. Soon, neighbors requested he paint their front window screens, and over time, the folk art became synonymous with Baltimore’s blue-collar, Formstone-sided row houses.

(Photo by Anna Pasqualucci)

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Charles Village

The now-ubiquitous “Painted Ladies” of Charles Village have only been around for 16 years, dating to a neighborhood painting contest inspired by the famous Victorian homes of San Francisco.

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That was then, this is now

Billie Holiday’s Street

At Durham and Pratt streets, there’s a new, four-story mural of Billie Holiday, who grew up on this Upper Fells Point block. Leading to her childhood home down the street is a mosaic of the blues singer in full voice——white plates forming the iconic gardenias she wore in her hair. The work, which portrays waves of sound morphing into bluebirds as the piece moves toward her former front door, is part of a larger effort to memorialize “Lady Day” in her former neighborhood.

(Photo by David Colwell)