When Nora O'Brien hosts guests at the secluded Victorian farmhouse she has painstakingly restored, friends have been known to carp about the deafening chorus of summertime tree frogs.
"I've had dinner parties where people say, 'Can't you make them shut up?' " said the 49-year-old landscape company owner and mother of three.
But she and dozens of other families across the state are willing to put up with such inconveniences. For them, living rent-free inside a Maryland state park outweighs getting chased by skunks, startled by snakes or clearing horse droppings from unpaved driveways that double as public riding trails.
"We consider ourselves stewards," said O'Brien, who has lived inside Patuxent River State Park for the past 15 years.
She is among 43 resident curators in an unusual program run by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in partnership with the Maryland Historical Trust. It is aimed at saving historic buildings the DNR acquired over the years as it purchased or accepted parklands that had houses, corn cribs and cabins on them.
In exchange for restoring the houses to rigorous national historic standards at an out-of-pocket expense that almost always reaches well beyond $100,000, the curators receive lifetime tenancy.
No rent. No property taxes. No condo fee. No new development to block the vistas.
Supporters say the program is a cost-effective way to preserve historic houses - three are on the National Register of Historic Places and the others are eligible for that consideration - without taxpayer dollars. The state would never have enough money, they say, to restore the neglected and dilapidated buildings.
State officials say curators have spent more than $9 million fixing everything from wood frame farmhouses to brick four-squares, based on self-reported expenditures and labor.
Curators not only brought the first indoor plumbing to some of the old houses, but paid tens of thousands of dollars to install wells and septic systems.
The finished products fulfill dreams of calling a piece of history their home, or saving a sliver of Maryland's past.
"It affords you the opportunity to have a very peaceful environment," said Leonard Mullar, who lives with his wife, Diane, in a house whose main section was built around 1801 in Patuxent River State Park.
Despite its 27-year history, the program remains little known and something of an oddity, drawing inquiries from other state and local governments grappling with preservation issues.
