Now that the sanctuary of Lovely Lane United Methodist Church has been restored, the historic building just north of it will be renovated next.
Goucher Hall, the first building on the original Goucher College campus, will be the new home of Baltimore Lab, a division of the Lab School of Washington.
Investor Neil Katz heads a group that acquired the gray granite landmark at 2220 St. Paul St. last year and has agreed to lease it to the school, which educates students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia.
The agreement ends a prolonged property search by the school, which has outgrown its current quarters on Roland Avenue. It also will help preserve the namesake of Baltimore's Old Goucher Historic District, created in and around the campus of the old Women's College of Baltimore, renamed Goucher College in 1910.
It comes one month after Lovely Lane church held a rededication service to mark completion of a $1.2 million restoration of its sanctuary, designed by Stanford White and opened in 1887.
Sally Smith, founder and executive director of the Lab Schools in Washington and Baltimore, said she is delighted with the St. Paul Street location.
"It's a wonderful building," Smith said of Goucher Hall. "Our plans are to move in and start school in September. We love the fact that we're right next to Lovely Lane. We're very excited about the opportunities for community outreach."
According to a history of the Old Goucher district by K. D. Kuntz and L. M. Principe, the college was created to provide higher education to daughters of Christian parents.
The Rev. John Goucher, who was instrumental in the construction of Lovely Lane church, donated the land between the church and 24th Street for the college campus.
Goucher Hall was designed in the Richardsonian Romanequse style by Baltimore architect Charles Carson to harmonize with Lovely Lane. It cost $130,000 and was completed in 1886. According to Kuntz and Principe, its footprint is shaped like an E in honor of Goucher's daughter, Eleanor.
The campus eventually grew to include more than 20 buildings, but they changed uses after the college moved to Baltimore County in the 1940s. In recent years, Goucher Hall has been home to the Hearing and Speech Agency, a nonprofit organization that provides services and information for deaf and hearing-impaired people. The building became vacant when that organization moved last year to larger quarters in the Seton Business Park.
