Acres Of Land

The Rouse Co. is best known for its retail meccas, including Baltimore's Harborplace and Boston's Faneuil Hall Marketplace, and its planned communities, Columbia and, Summerlin, Nev., outside of Las Vegas. With tens of thousand of acres in each of those communities, plus smaller land holdings elsewhere, Rouse has a less-flashy third business that's helped anchor it in a cyclical industry, Wall Street and real estate experts note. That business? Land sales. Rouse has kept a tight rein on land that it sells to other developers for offices, homes and other projects.

Offering the most detailed explanation to date of his administration's search for surplus property, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. promised yesterday an open process to decide what public land the state should dispose of and insisted that parks and public forest "never were and never will be for sale." Ehrlich made the pledge in an unusual written statement that sought to reshape the debate over the possible public land sales. The governor said his administration was reviewing parks and all other agency land holdings to fulfill a campaign promise and bring smart management to Annapolis.

Why Buy the Appalachian Trail?We operate a farm just about four miles north of Wolfsville on Pleasant Valley Road in northern Frederick County. Our family has farmed in this area since 1927.We are currently being forced to deal with the state Department of Natural Resources on the proposal to move the existing Appalachian Trail about one mile east of its present location to our farm.If the state succeeds it will take 38 acres of prime farmland and 24 acres of woodland. We currently farm 141 acres.

THIS JOURNEY began innocently enough, a curious foray into my family's history. But I find it has led me into an unexpected place of greed and betrayal, slavery and cruelty. For generations my father's family has passed down a legend. It is a story of an early white settler in northern Alabama named John Gunter who married a Cherokee "princess." My father's mother was a Gunter from Alabama, and as I grew up I was intrigued by the romantic tale. I always proudly added "Cherokee" to the list of otherwise European nations whose blood we believed moved in our veins.

No doubt you've heard about the three most important considerations when you're buying a house: location, location and location. They also serve quite handily as the three most important considerations in planning a wedding, too. Just about everything except your choice of spouse is determined by this most important detail -- the flowers, the colors, the style, the themes.So to assist in finding your quintessential, one-and-only, I-did-it-my-way sort of setting, we've compiled what you might think of as a real estate listing of area reception sites.

When Heat Press last ran in Maryland, he finished third in a three-horse race. Yet his owner - the same man who managed to turn the idea of quick-drying fabric into an athletic apparel empire that brought in nearly $2 billion in revenue last year - spent much of Monday touting the horse's chances against the best 3-year-olds in the country. Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank has never been one to pay the odds much mind. On Monday, he bounced from interview to interview, assuring each camera and recorder of his faith in the inconsistent colt.

Washington Redskins officials signed an agreement yesterday to buy 100 acres owned by Laurel Race Course as a site for the team's proposed $160 million stadium.The parcel is nearly double the 55 acres Redskins officials said they were considering last month. The extra land became necessary when the team decided to move the 78,600-seat stadium 1,700 feet to the west and buy additional property for parking.Few details of the agreement were released yesterday, including the sale price and the parcel's boundaries.

In Jim Slayton's and Rob Hradsky's living room, a verse has been painted in flowing script over the camel-back sofa. It reads: "Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." For the two men, that simple saying is indicative of their life's work, joy and sacred pledge to the care of their four adopted children and the reason for their move into a 6,500-square-foot Colonial-style home in Woodstock, Md. "We have a commitment to adopting," said Slayton, a nurse in the Howard County Public School System.

In the middle of his Aberdeen equipment shop, Paul Burkheimer, 62, sweeps some bolts and other construction parts off a blueprint on his workbench and frowns at what the renderings reveal. Where the view from his home and adjoining business is now dominated by rolling hills and farmland - as well as a scenic view for golfers at the nearby Wetlands golf course - a developer wants to build thousands of townhouses and single-family dwellings. Worst of all, in his view: The development was largely made possible by Burkheimer's 64-year-old brother, William, who agreed to sell his property next door, which has been in the family for over 50 years, for about $10 million.