When 86-year-old Martin McGinn moved to Towson last summer to be closer to his family, he left behind longtime friendships, bridge partners, and golf buddies in Princeton, New Jersey. But the widower soon settled into a 55-and-older apartment complex in his new community and started looking for a place to “get some fresh food and companionship.”

A neighbor suggested The Peppermill in Lutherville, a beloved, 40-year-old restaurant known in many circles as “God’s Waiting Room,” “Ruck’s North” after a nearby funeral home, and “Wrinkles.”

Sure enough, McGinn, a retired chemist, found his niche. “Most of the people are my age and have a story to tell,” he says. “It’s a cast of characters.”

And that’s just what the owners were hoping for.

Ever since opening in 1982, the 265-seat restaurant in Heaver Plaza has attracted an older clientele. “We were thinking [ages] 50 and above,” says Dave Jones, who is an original owner with his business partner, Rick Ziegel, and Jones’ late father-in-law, Tommy Perrera. “We always went for the same market.”

It’s a healthy demographic in Baltimore County, where one in four residents is 60 or older, according to a 2021 American Community Survey. And the number of senior citizens has been rising steadily in the county since the ’70s, when U.S. Census figures showed a growth of 50,000 residents age 65 and older between 1975 and 1990.

Laura Riley, director of Baltimore County Department of Aging, which has 20 senior centers, points out the importance of social interactions among an older population. “It’s very positive for your physical and mental health,” she says. “We all thrive from having interactions with others.”

That is one of the draws of The Peppermill for Sally Nesbitt, 73, who lives in Lutherville. She has been coming to the restaurant every day since it opened, first with her husband, who died 14 years ago, and now by herself or with friends. “I like meeting the people,” says the retiree, sipping a glass of Pinot Grigio during a recent visit. “The food is good, and the owners and bartenders make everyone comfortable.”

Dave Jones hadn’t planned to go into the restaurant business, but then he fell in love with and married Perrera’s daughter, Darlene. At the time, Perrera and Manny DiPaulo operated Diavolo’s in Timonium, before changing the name to Turf Inn in 1974. (It’s now Hightopps Backstage Grille.) Jones and Ziegel, who is Darlene’s cousin, worked together at the Turf Inn. When the Perrera-DiPaulo partnership split up, Jones, Ziegel, and Perrera started looking for a new location.

They found a space about three miles south that had previously housed four failed restaurants: Mason’s Heritage House, T.J’s Greenery, Knott’s Landing, and Gibson’s. Some blamed the closures on a lack of windows in the place. But that didn’t deter the restaurateurs. “We took a chance,” Jones says. “Tio Pepe has no windows. It doesn’t have a problem.”

From the outset, the restaurant was a hit with older diners for its reasonable food and drink prices and congenial atmosphere. “We were successful at the Turf Inn,” Jones says. “I think we carried a lot of that down here. We brought the menu we were accustomed to. We knew what people were looking for.”

The name Peppermill was suggested by Jones’ sister-in-law, Terri McGinn (no relation to Martin McGinn), who visited a similarly named establishment in Las Vegas and liked the sound of it. “We didn’t want to call it Dave’s or Rick’s,” Ziegel says. “Then, Terri came up with the name.”

When the restaurant opened, they had 500 Lucite pepper mills, but they kept breaking or disappearing from the tables. “We were going broke [from replacing pepper mills],” Ziegel cracks. “Then we bought wooden pepper mills.” The 18-inch grinders aren’t kept on the tables anymore, but customers can request freshly ground pepper for their meals.

The menu has a range of affordable items, including sandwiches, burgers, crab cakes, meatloaf, and throwbacks like calf’s liver and onions and chicken Baltimore with crabmeat and mushrooms. Even splurges like a 5-ounce lobster tail ($23.95) and a 6-ounce filet mignon ($22.95) don’t break the bank. Daily specials feature traditional dishes like oysters Rockefeller, fresh rockfish, and tuna salad.

But The Peppermill hasn’t totally ignored the culinary revolution going on in the United States, where ramen shops and vegan bakeries are the rage. Though it leans toward traditional offerings, it has taken baby steps in that direction with offerings like shrimp tacos, beet salad with goat’s cheese, and swordfish picatta.

Still, the restaurant may be best known for its seasonal shad roe—the egg sac of the female shad fish, which is broiled with lemon and water and sometimes gussied up with bacon. Every spring, a large sign, fronting busy York Road, blares its arrival: “Shad Roe Is In. The Run Is On.” “It’s the age group,” explains Jones about the dish’s popularity. “It’s what people like to eat.”

 

THE RESTAURANT MIGHT BE BEST KNOWN FOR ITS SHAD ROE, WHICH IS BROILED WITH LEMON AND GUSSIED UP WITH BACON.

 

While Jones, 72, handles myriad duties at The Peppermill, from payroll to changing light fixtures, his partner Ziegel, 65, runs the kitchen, among other responsibilities. Ziegel learned how to make several of the restaurant’s recipes, including Maryland crab soup and oyster stew, from his late mother, Concetta “Chettie” Ziegel.

He started at the Turf Inn as a busboy when he was a 14-year-old high-school student before moving into the kitchen as a line cook. He attended what is now Towson University, studying business and economics, but his heart didn’t stray far from The Peppermill. Ziegel doesn’t cook as much these days, instead leaving the day-to-day preparations to head chef T.J. Waldt. But he’s involved in ordering and buying the food and deciding what will appear on the menu. Jones and Ziegel have aged with their clientele.

“Now, we’re the old people,” Jones says with a laugh.

But this isn’t the end of the line for The Peppermill. A new generation is already involved in running the restaurant: Jones’ daughter, Heather Allen, 43, and Ziegel’s son, Brady Ziegel, who turns 28 in March. Allen works in the office, handling payroll, paying invoices, and slowly taking over her dad’s managerial duties. She’s been working at the restaurant since she was 16, first as a hostess, then as a waitress while studying public relations at Loyola University. But she got her first taste of The Peppermill as a child and remembers being able to order anything on the menu.

“I thought it was so cool that the family had a restaurant,” she says. “I remember birthdays here and the celebrations with my grandparents.”

Brady Ziegel knew from a young age that he was going to work at the restaurant. His first impressions were drinking non-alcoholic Shirley Temple cocktails and digging into bowls of Goldfish crackers at the bar when he was around six. By the time he was 15, he was bussing tables while he was a student at Hereford High School. At 15, he started cooking. “I would watch the guys [in the kitchen], and pick up on what they did every day,” he says.

After high school, he realized he wasn’t interested in going to college. “This is what I wanted to do,” he says.

Today, Brady helps out in the kitchen but also spends time in the dining room and bar, greeting customers and making sure everything is running smoothly.

“Brady is a total asset,” Jones says. “He can go from the front of the house to the back of the house.”

While the food scene in Baltimore has become more trendy, Allen and Brady don’t plan to change anything about The Peppermill, which is just fine with its patrons.

“It’s always nice to know that some things will remain the same, from having oysters only in months ending in ‘R’ and shad roe running in March, plus all our classic Baltimore dishes, from sour beef and dumplings to soft-shell crabs,” Allen says. “So many patrons come in and say, this place reminds me of my grandmother, or, my grandfather brought me after soccer practices. I just think that’s so special.”

Like most restaurants, The Peppermill had to figure out how to navigate the pandemic. At the height of the closures and with a high-risk clientele, it switched to carry-out only, keeping as many employees as it could. “We’re survivors,” Jones says. “We adjusted.”

Many of the staff have been with the family for decades. Annalee Cary, a hostess and server, has clocked in 33 years. She watched Allen and Brady Ziegel grow up. “Brady and Heather are the future,” she says. “They’re going to keep it going for the next 40 years.”

Vince DiGiacomo started as a busboy and dishwasher 40 years ago, working his way up the chain of command, becoming a bartender and then a manager. Even his wife, Karen Peters, works at the restaurant as a waitress. “They’ve treated me well,” DiGiacomo says. “And they leave me alone to do my job.”

Waitress Darlene Beck, who worked at Diavolo’s and the Turf Inn, followed Jones, Ziegel, and Perrera to The Peppermill. “I love my job,” she says. “I love who I work for. They treat me like family.”

At the restaurant, she is known as Dar Beck since another waitress is named Darlene. She also earned another moniker, Dar the Star. “Tommy [Perrera] gave me the name, and it stuck,” says Beck, 75. “I have a lot of regular customers. I know what they eat, what they drink. I’ve met a lot of nice people.”

She isn’t offended by the restaurant’s nicknames poking fun at the septuagenarians, octogenarians, and, yes, nonagenarians who frequent the place. “It’s cute,” she says. “People laugh about it.”

She recalls a diner who was looking for his dining companion one evening. “Have you seen a little old lady?” he asked Beck. Her amused response: “Look around. They’re everywhere.”

Though Beck has cut her work schedule to three days, she has no plans to retire. “As long as God gives me legs, I’m working,” she says with a laugh. “I like my apron.”

While Beck mostly roams the main dining room, lots of patrons choose the bar instead. The 25-seat bar area, which also has seven tables and six booths, is its own hub. Since owner Tommy Perrera’s time, the restaurant has prided itself on its “stiff drinks,” Heather Allen says.

There’s no official happy hour, but on a recent weekday at 4:30 p.m., every seat was taken. Notably, no one was buried in their cell phone. It seemed fitting that an old-school print edition of The Baltimore Sun occupied a spot on the green Corian bar top.

One of the bar’s longtime customers, Dick Roden, sat on his favorite stool, drinking two bottles of Budweiser and joking with Jones, only a few weeks before he passed away in his sleep in November at age 90. The Korean War veteran, who lived in Cockeysville, found solace in the company and the food, preferring to eat his favorite meal of pork loin, mashed potatoes, and sauerkraut at a table. “A booth is for eating,” he declared. “The bar is for drinking.”

He leaves behind a legacy. He was one of The Peppermill’s first customers. At the time, he gave the owners a $1 bill to get them started. Forty years later, during an anniversary celebration in October, he gave them another dollar. Both dollar bills are framed and hanging in the restaurant office. “It’s a keepsake,” Jones says.

“It’s hard when someone dies,” Brady acknowledges. “They’re like family. We always remember them.”

Jake Jacobs, 83, often stops by with his partner and her friend. On a recent afternoon, the threesome had been playing cards at a local senior center when they decided to get a bite to eat. “We said, ‘Let’s go to the Wrinkle Room,’” Jacobs shares with a laugh while drinking a Coors Light. “The food is good, the drinks are good, and it’s great getting to know everyone. It’s our Cheers.”

Perhaps the patron who draws the most attention is 98-year-old Jack King of Lutherville, who served as a Navy ensign in World War II. He spent his service time in officer-training school in the States. The affable widower holds court most days at the bar.

“It’s a friendly bunch of people,” he says, while drinking the first of two Johnnie Walker Blacks on the rocks. “There are ladies who have lost their husbands. There are men who have lost their wives. It’s not a pick-up joint. Everybody enjoys talking to each other.”

Now, Martin McGinn has joined the group of regulars. He comes to The Peppermill two or three times a week, arriving at 3:30 p.m. by Uber or chauffeured by a granddaughter, and waits for his son, Dr. Martin McGinn, a Towson optometrist, to pick him up around 5 p.m. He may drink a glass or two of Chardonnay and order a cup of oyster stew at the bar while chatting with other patrons.

“I love it,” he says. “It’s like I’ve been coming here my whole life. Everyone makes you feel welcome.”

ven though he’s wearing enemy colors, Ed Soth is greeted the same way he usually is when he walks into Robbie’s First Base—with some good-natured ribbing.

“We’re going to stop letting you in here with that hat,” says Robbie Davis Jr., half of what might be the most well-known Senior-Junior tandem in the world of Baltimore sports . . . memorabilia. “How’d you get to be a Yankees fan?”

The conversation that ensues is similar to ones that take place in bars, at barbershops, and during ballgames every day: a group of old friends shooting the breeze about sports. The fact that it happens to be taking place in what is likely the world’s only sports memorabilia/mail service store just adds to the fun.

When Robbie Davis Sr., 71, opened the store in this small Lutherville strip mall in 1989, he had no idea that one day he’d be working alongside his sons, Robbie Jr., 43, and Matthew, 32. He didn’t know that the business would morph from dealing primarily with FedEx and UPS packages to making deals for Frank Robinson and Johnny Unitas autographs. He certainly couldn’t have imagined that the family would star in an ABC reality series and be featured in a Netflix show scheduled to drop this summer.

The exchange going down is exactly what has attracted television producers, audiences, and, most importantly, regular old customers to Robbie’s.

“I grew up at the old stadium, used to sneak in all the time,” says Soth, who often comes in to send packages and stays to hang out. “Want to hear a funny story?”

It’s a rhetorical question—everyone at Robbie’s is always up for a laugh.

“One day I was there, I’m 11 years old, and I’m sitting in the stands and Mantle is in the field,” Soth says. “Ball is hit, comes right to me, and I reach over and grab [it]. Ball hits me in the hand and falls to the [warning] track. Swear to God, Mantle walks over, picks the ball up, looks at me, and I think he’s gonna toss it up to me. That sonofabitch turned and walked away.”

Sitting at his cluttered desk behind the counter, Senior, as many people call him, lets out a belly laugh. From his slightly less messy desk a few feet away, Junior does the same.

“We have a lot of people who just come in and talk sports,” Junior says. “We get 85-year-old grandmas in here on a Monday morning talking Ravens. They’ll say, ‘Did you see that play that Lamar made?’ I can’t believe my ears. That’s what makes it cool.”

Robbie Davis Sr. grew up in West Baltimore, where, as he likes to remind people, he was a “really good” baseball player at Edmondson-Westside High School.

“I always tell my son that even though he got signed to a pro contract, I was better than him,” he says. “And he can’t refute it, because I’m the only one who’s seen us both play.”

After graduating, he served as a combat medic in the Army before going into the car business. At one point, he co-owned 12 dealerships in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Among them were All-Star Dodge and All-Star Chevrolet on Route 40. Orioles’ legends Brooks Robinson and Eddie Murray were among the athletes that did commercials for the dealerships, and Davis developed friendships with several guys on the team. When the O’s went on road trips, Davis would occasionally house-sit for Murray.

“Eddie Murray knew me before I knew who he was,” Junior says. “To me he was just a guy who was friends with my dad.”

One of Senior’s partners at the dealership collected baseball cards, and he took note when the man made some money buying and selling them. When he left the car business and opened a postal services store in Catonsville, then another in Lutherville, Senior put out a few boxes of baseball cards on the weekends.

Quickly, he realized that the Topps were topping his sales. He began buying and selling other brands that were hot at the time, like Upper Deck, and closed the Catonsville store to focus on the one in Lutherville.

 

“. . . THE BEST PART WAS GETTING TO BE AROUND PEOPLE THAT WERE AS PASSIONATE ABOUT COLLECTING MEMORABILIA AS WE ARE.”

 

“You never have a business where you can make money right away,” he says. “Well, the first month we opened up we were in the black.”

Perhaps his biggest challenge was keeping his sons from playing with his inventory. Where Senior saw an investment, Junior saw a pastime.

“He would buy all these unopened boxes and tell me, ‘Don’t open them,’” Junior recalls. “He would put them in our house in this room, and of course, I’m a little kid, so I’d be in there opening the packs because that’s what kids do. It’s no fun to just sit there and look at a box.”

A baseball addict from a young age, Junior played center field in college and was signed by the Milwaukee Brewers. When his career fizzled out in the minor leagues, he began working with his father in the store. As Robbie’s grew, the Davises began buying and selling all kinds of sports memorabilia: jerseys, autographed baseballs, seats from the old Memorial Stadium and Cole Field House. One of the most expensive items they acquired was a Babe Ruth signed baseball for $20,000. They later sold it for a tidy profit.

As their reputation continued to grow, more and more athletes started stopping by the store. Al Bumbry has been friends with Senior since they met in the mid-’80s. The Orioles Hall of Famer, who was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the Army during the Vietnam War, still drops in often.

“The store presents a very social, laidback, easygoing atmosphere,” says Bumbry, the 1973 American League Rookie of the Year and a member of Baltimore’s 1983 World Series championship team. “People don’t feel pressured there because Bob’s a people person. Once he connects with you and becomes friends with you, he’s one of those guys that I would take in the foxhole with me.”

Lewis Brown was a 15-year-old kid when he first went to Robbie’s.

“Senior, he likes to take chances on people,” he says. “I didn’t grow up the richest, so sometimes I’d be in there and I’d go, ‘Mom, I want to get this,’ and she’d say, ‘Well I don’t have the money for it.’ There was a Barry Bonds-signed baseball. It was like a hundred and some dollars. He was like, ‘Just take it, and when you get the money just come in and pay for it.’ Ain’t nobody does that.”

It took Brown, now 35, a few weeks to scrape together the money. When he returned to the store, Senior offered him a job. He’s been working there ever since. When he was trying to save $10,000 for a down payment on a house, Senior asked how he was going to do it.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know. I’ll figure it out,’” Brown says. “He goes, ‘I’ll lend you the money and you can just pay me back when you get it.’ That’s the type of guy he is.”

In 2010, the producers of the reality show Pawn Stars contacted the Davises with an idea. They wanted to film a series about the business and its cast of characters. The core four in the show would be Robbie Sr., Robbie Jr., Brown, and Robbie Reier, another longtime employee. There was only one problem: way too many Robbies. Thus, Senior became Senior, Junior became Junior, Brown became “Sweet Lou,” and the then-baby-faced Reier became “Shaggy.”

In 12 episodes of Ball Boys, the guys goofed on each other, debated sports, negotiated with buyers and sellers, and interacted with greats from the sports world. They played basketball with former University of Michigan Fab Fiver Jalen Rose. Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon fired footballs at them. The legendary running back Jim Brown came to the store, but of all the sports royalty they met, baseball’s hit king, Pete Rose, was their favorite.

After shooting a segment, Rose asked for a restaurant recommendation for lunch. When Senior told him the production company would only pay a pittance for their food, Rose whipped $10,000 cash out of his pocket.

“He’s the kind of guy that if you go to a bar you want to hang out with,” Senior says.

When Sweet Lou asked for a personalized autograph, Rose wrote, “To Lou, you big fat piece of shit.”

“I loved that,” Brown says.

The show ran for just one season in 2012, but it was rebroadcast for years after that and is still available on ABC’s app. It raised the store’s profile both locally and nationally—they still get customers who say they heard of Robbie’s from Ball Boys.

“It was awesome,” Junior says. “I liked being on TV, but the best part was getting to be around people that were as passionate about collecting memorabilia as we are. We met people from all around the country, and we got to share our stories.”

Bob Windsor, aka Burger King Bob, is milling about the store, going back and forth with Senior about . . .something or other. The two are old friends. They get together on Sundays to watch football at Windsor’s house, where he makes sure Senior always has chips to snack on and Hennessy to wash them down.

An avid collector, he’s bought everything from a Babe Ruth-autographed baseball to Michael Jordan’s shoes at Robbie’s. But the products aren’t what keep him coming back.

“If there was a pot belly stove and an old dog, you’d be there for hours every day,” says Windsor, whose nickname stems from his job as a “financial guy” for several Burger King franchises. “It’s that homey.”

That’s never changed at Robbie’s, but the preferences of memorabilia consumers are ever-evolving. After a down period in the ’90s and 2000s, cards are back in vogue. And not just baseball cards. These days, Pokémon is as popular as Paul Molitor.

“I had a kid buy two $8 packs and he got a $700 card in there,” Junior says. “That’s what these cards are all about now. It’s all about the gamble.”

That being said, there are some athletes whose appeal is timeless in Baltimore. Cal Ripken Jr., Brooks Robinson, Gary Williams, and Ray Lewis items always sell quickly. But there’s one athlete whose popularity Junior says is unprecedented.

“Nothing’s been like Lamar,” he says of the Ravens quarterback. “[Jackson] has been the biggest craze that we’ve seen in this business since we’ve been open. People can’t get enough of him.”

Although the Davises are hometown fans—they live and die with the Orioles and the Ravens—and love sports memorabilia, the business requires a sort of cold lack of sentimentality. Anything they acquire could be gone the next moment.

“People say, ‘Is this for sale?’” Senior says. “I say, ‘Come on, if it’s got a price tag on it, it’s for sale.’”

Still, there are a few items in which they seem to take special pride. Near Senior’s desk hangs a signed photo of Orioles Mike Morgan and Fred Lynn from the mid-’80s. Lynn’s note reads, “To Bob, the second-best ballplayer I know.”

“That’s because I always told him I was as good as him,” Senior says, chuckling.

Above Junior’s desk is another framed photo, this one with Lynn and Eddie Murray standing over Senior, who is sitting in a chair with his then-eight-year-old son, Robbie Jr., on his lap.

Neither of those items have a price tag.

Homeowners Lisa and David knew they were ready to leave behind the Owings Mills house where they raised their three children. While it held good memories, the couple was not sentimental about jettisoning its center-hall colonial style.

“We always thought we’d build some day, but, with three children in private school, we had other priorities,” Lisa says.

So, looking to downsize, the couple, who asked their last name be withheld, cast a wide search net. “We looked at condos and rowhouses in the city, but nothing piqued our interest,” David says.

Plan B: They switched gears and decided to build from scratch, purchasing a private “flag lot”—real estate parlance for a parcel lying at the end of a long driveway—in Lutherville. The driveway is the metaphorical flagpole, while the shape of the lot is rectangular, like a flag.

They then enlisted the expertise of Peter Twohy of 2e Architects and interior designer Lela Knight to construct a new home that would be the complete opposite of their traditional former abode.

“When we first met with Peter, he gave us homework,” David says. “He gave us a questionnaire that got down to the minutiae of everything we did in the house, down to whether Lisa put on her makeup standing up or sitting down.”

After the exhaustive survey, meant to provide Twohy with clarity on their lifestyle and priorities, he asked that they look online and in magazines to find stylistic inspiration, which, for the couple, turned out to be a be a mid-century aesthetic. Lisa, whose father was a commercial architect, grew up in a home that had mid-century touches, while David discovered an interest in the designs of California-based builder Joseph Eichler and a passion for clerestory windows, a section of wall with windows above eye level. This was all good news to Twohy.

“The magic of this flag lot is it is significantly behind any neighbors and it’s a sloped lot, not good for a family with kids to set up a soccer goal, but perfect for an upside-down house with the main living at the entry level and more bedrooms at ground level with an exit to a pool,” says Twohy.

Lisa and David had a reasonable wish list: For one, they frequently entertain and wanted to be able to leave a mess in the kitchen and not see it when they host a dinner. They also typically have more than 20 guests for Thanksgiving, so they needed a large dining space and commissioned a custom table for that purpose.

In addition, each of the children needed a bedroom for extended visits, as only one child lives nearby, and they requested an elevator for aging in place.

Usually, Twohy creates detailed drawings, but they can be hard for laypeople to visualize, so he also used virtual reality this time around, enabling the clients to actually be “in” the house and move through it, creating absolute clarity of the end design.

Twohy’s design nestles the 3,800-square-foot home into the slope. A master suite, kitchen, and living and dining areas are all at entry level, so the couple can live almost entirely on one floor. At ground level, there are bedrooms for the kids, a recreation area, and a workout niche, all facing onto the pool. Rather than ruin the home’s view with a deck extending across the home’s back, Twohy offset it.

It was a tight buildable area, but nothing about the house feels cramped. On the contrary, it soars. Entering from the driveway into a foyer with eight-foot ceilings, guests step through into another world, a treehouse world, where the ceilings rise to 11 feet and a wall of glass looks out on woods and down on the pool.

Massive beams of a cantilevered roof, supported on only one end, shoot across the ceiling straight out through the glass windows, creating a 10-foot overhang, a feat of engineering genius, while the clerestory windows David wanted bring in more light while preserving privacy and creating a canvas for the couple’s artwork. The ceiling is uninterrupted inside, so Twohy sculpted the interior spaces with half-walls and floating cabinetry enclosing the kitchen and pantry.

David describes the house as a bit like the tent in a Harry Potter film: normal and unassuming outside, but an expansive magical otherworld inside. “People come in and literally stop and stare,” says Lisa.

The exterior is stone and stucco. Nichiha panels are used on the interior and exterior, complementing the extensive glass while blurring the line between inside and out. Other rooms share this naturalistic vibe, like the master bath with its river-rock floor, blue slate porcelain tile, and disappearing glass shower wall.

“We wanted the house to be part of the exterior with clean lines that nestled into rather than dominated the site,” Twohy says, “so we used all natural and natural-toned materials.”

“When you walk in and see that view, it is so peaceful, so beautiful, it is all about nature,” says Lela Knight of Lela Knight Interiors. “Everything else is a backdrop.”

The entire home used only two paint colors. The floors are made of light-colored maple with a slate-toned porcelain tile trim bordering the entire main level, where the owners can keep their extensive collection of houseplants without fear of damaging wood floors. The ground-level floors are cork and the home operates on a geothermal system.

Much of the furniture and the couple’s extensive collection of art, rugs, and collectibles came from the previous home. Knight says she enjoyed the process of curating their belongings.

“There’s a nod to mid-century modern in the split-level feel, and in certain light fixtures, like the George Nelson bubble lamps,” she says. “Some pieces of furniture, like the custom dining-room table, have a Frank Lloyd Wright feel.”

Twohy and Knight are both enthralled by the kitchen, which features floating double- sided cherry cabinetry. The island, with its double waterfall edge in “Cosmic Black” granite, sits like a sculptural monolith.

“David spent hours driving around looking for just the right slab,” says Knight. “He really was passionate about it.”

David was also adamant in his dislike of downspouts. Builder F.C. Batton & Son provided a solution, encasing the downspouts at the glass height so they become part of the structure, then dropping them into copper lines that are buried and carry water away from the house underground.

Twohy and Knight agree that the owners’ interest in the design process and the collaboration that ensued was remarkable. In fact, the group became friends. Pre-COVID, they started a supper club that, in the pandemic, morphed into an online game night. The couple also successfully hosted one large Thanksgiving before COVID-19 paused their entertaining. Yet the pandemic was not all bad news.

“We live in this house so comfortably and we were fortunate to have it during the quarantine, especially when two of our three children returned home for extended stays,” says Lisa. “It was an unexpected windfall to have that time with our children as adults.”

“The biggest compliment I can pay this house,” she continues, “is that though I was hesitant to leave our family home and those memories, we don’t miss it at all, and neither do our kids.”

Architecture: 2e Architects Interior Design: Lela Knight Interior Design Builder: F.C. Batton & Son Structural Engineer:  Sweeney Engineering, P.C. Kitchen Design: Rackl Christopher Associates Pool Design: Paradise Pools Custom Furniture and Mantels:  John Landis Cabinetworks Granite: Rock Tops Fabrication Landscape: Tannenhof Horticultural Services Cabinetmaker: Dreamwoods Limited

In the main living area of Peter and Laurie Stubb’s home, a roughly 40-foot-wide stretch of floor-to-ceiling windows frames the dense surrounding foliage like a natural work of art. The placement of the two-story, tongue-and-groove-paneled home on a hillside gives it the feel of a dramatic tree house—sliding patio doors open from the living and dining area to a 45-foot-long balcony that runs the entire length of the home.

“We appreciated the effort the original architect made to situate the house in this dynamic natural setting, nestling it into the side of a hill, orienting it to take advantage of views of the landscape and to receive as much sunlight as possible,” says Laurie Stubb. If she sounds like she knows the lingo, that’s because she works in residential design as principal of Place Architecture: Design.

When the Stubbs purchased the house from its original owners in 2001, it was like opening a 1960s time capsule. Both professional architects (Peter Stubb is Baltimore design principal for global architecture firm Gensler), the couple relished the opportunity to renovate an untouched midcentury-modern home.

“While the house was attractive to us for its purity of form, the site was another story,” Laurie says of the heavily wooded and overgrown plot. “The site lacked, in a design sense, meaningful connections to the larger natural environment.” Still, the Stubbs and their daughters, Emily and Abigail, lived in the home for 14 years before embarking on any significant exterior work.

Holding off on landscaping was an intentional choice. Coming from a 14-square-foot yard in their prior South Baltimore rowhome, Laurie describes the jump to a 2-plus-acre tract as both daunting and exciting. “We saw the benefit in living here for a while, absorbing, learning, and gathering an understanding of the challenges, while seeking opportunities for making it our own,” she explains. 

Eventually, though, the need to replace rotting wood in their balcony got the couple to focus on the exterior. “I’ve long been inspired by American landscape architect Dan Kiley, whose approach was that a design should grow out of a landscape, rather than be imposed on it,” says Peter Stubb. As part of their inspiration, the couple also drew from Japanese landscapes and the concept of wabi-sabi, or finding beauty in imperfections.

In the summer of 2015, the Stubbs worked with Owings Brothers Contracting out of Eldersburg to rebuild their Redwood balcony, adding 1.5 feet onto the original 5-foot width and installing a more modern railing. The additional width has transformed how the family uses the space—creating enough room for an outdoor table and other furniture to allow them to eat dinner outside on warmer nights.

The flattest part of the yard centers around a rectangular court filled with fine gravel for playing pétanque, a French tossed-ball game similar to the Italian bocce that the Stubbs took up on a trip through France. “We never thought we would be talking about a pétanque court, but here we are,” says Laurie with a laugh. “The goal was to create a place unlike any other in the yard, one designed for fun, not to mention a welcome bit of flat land. We might throw a few balls at the end of the day to unwind, or sometimes it becomes the centerpiece of a large gathering of friends and neighbors.”

Since pétanque doesn’t regulate court size, the Stubbs worked with Black Rock Landscapes in northern Baltimore County to design and build a rectangular terrain that cuts slightly into the yard’s natural slope and mirrors the landscape’s dominant contours—a natural stream on one side of the playing area, and the house on the other. In contrast with the court’s straight boundaries, a natural-stone edge softens the transition from the rectangular court to a stone terrace. 

Peter also laid a path of concrete steps to connect the home’s downstairs family room to the backyard. Also hand-built were dry-stacked stone retaining walls to define edges and frame planting beds. Butterbur plants, which can tolerate shady areas and grew naturally on the property, were trained to dominate the slope between the court and the house. The chest-high plants, which spawn large round leaves from a single stem, soften the stark lines of the home while providing a sense of human scale.

Relocating small trees and plants already growing on the site is just one way the Stubbs designed with sustainability in mind. Redwood planks salvaged from the original balcony were reused to create communal seating in the backyard living space. “The moment the design really came together was when we hit on the idea of reusing the old balcony wood to create a new boardwalk that runs the length of the pétanque court and provides seating for players,” Laurie explains. “It’s not only a perfect place to sit and watch a game, it’s great for catching a nap in the sun.”

Guided by their philosophy of experimentation, the couple has created three distinct exterior spaces, “each with a unique purpose, function, and relationship to the landscape,” Laurie says. “What we didn’t realize is that this approach would lead us into a path of constant experimentation that continues to this day. We wouldn’t trade it—it’s a labor of love.”   

The fluffy stuff falling from the sky isn’t the only white we fear
during the winter. Many of us are still baffled by the rules of how—or
if!—one should wear white after summer.

Jenna Hattenburg, co-owner of Hampden’s Hunting Ground, assures us
that wearing white is acceptable and that the look is easy to pull off.
Her suggestion: Be bold with texture. “Save the linen and seersucker for
summer,” she says. “And instead, go for chunky knits, wool, leather,
and silk.”

Although black-and-white color blocking is a classic look, Sima Blue,
owner of Lutherville’s Trillium, prefers to mix and match other
neutrals—think caramels, creams, beiges, chocolate browns, and even
leopard prints. “I love white pants and a beigey camel sweater,” says
Blue.

And it’s totally acceptable to apply this color choice to jewelry,
handbags, and even sunglasses throughout the winter. “It breaks up the
drab color this time of year of always black and brown,” Bree McNerney,
manager of Harbor East’s Handbags in the City, explains. “It’s a natural
color that brightens things up and makes things more cheery.”

Clockwise
from top left: Ted Baker Ohavia top ($195) at Trillium Ltd. Necklace
($36) at Sassanova. Pierrot Alessandro purse ($129) at South Moon Under.
Vintage ivory gloves ($52) at Hunting Ground. Urban Expressions natural
clutch ($34.99) at South Moon Under. Tom Ford Kit Astuccio Rigido
sunglasses ($440) at Handbags in the City. 7 For All Mankind velvet
skinny jeans ($178) at Trillium Ltd.

What makes history way more interesting? As it turns out: alcohol. Lutherville native Derek Waters, 33, and living in LA, got the idea for Drunk History while tossing a few back with actor pal Jake Johnson (New Girl). 

“He was really drunk and telling me about how Otis Redding knew he was going to die on that plane crash,” he says. “It was hilarious hearing someone so passionate, but frustrated that he couldn’t articulate it.” 

Waters decided to use his friends’ drunken, and usually inaccurate, tales as narration for short clips featuring famous comedians (think Will Ferrell) and himself acting them out in period garb. The wildly popular videos are now spawning a Comedy Central show, premiering July 9.

Each 30-minute episode is set in a different city and “recreates” historical events. “I went to a bar or organized a house party in every city,” he says. Comedians like Luke and Owen Wilson act out stories about Elvis, John Wilkes Booth, and even Patty Hearst. 

“I want to do something that is a little weird and keeps my friends in Baltimore laughing,” Waters says. “I want to make Hon kind of comedy.”