Carroll Mansion

BALTIMORE's venerable Carroll Mansion is in peril once again.It has long been in the pantheon of revered city-owned landmarks such as the Washington Monument, the pagoda in Patterson Park, the Battle Monument, Druid Hill Park's pavilions, the Peale Museum, the War Memorial and the Shot Tower.But the mansion is now for sale.(By the way, so is the Shot Tower.)In fact, to the amazement and horror of historians, architectural preservationists and patriotic groups mobilizing to try to stop it, City Hall has put the entire City Life Museums complex, of which the Carroll Mansion became a part a few years ago, up for bids.

Temperatures climbed into the 50s and gentle winds buffeted those who had gathered outside Mount Clare Mansion to celebrate its reopening and affiliation with the B&O Railroad Museum. While bystanders waited for the official ribbon-cutting ceremonies to begin last week, they reveled in the spectacular view of Baltimore from atop the gently sloping hill where Mount Clare, built in 1760, stands overlooking Southwest Baltimore's Carroll Park. The Monumental City Fife and Drum Corps, dressed in colorful period costumes and wearing tricorn hats, serenaded those waiting with a selection of peppy 18th- and 19th-century airs.

Local preservationists are pushing Baltimore's long-dormant Carroll Mansion into the limelight, just as the area around it is buzzing with redevelopment. Carroll Museums Inc., a nonprofit group that operates the historic mansion at 800 E. Lombard St., has reopened the building for tours and made part of the first floor into the Jonestown Visitors Center, a stop on the new Heritage Walk tour from the Inner Harbor to East Baltimore. The group is making space available for art exhibits, conferences and community events at the mansion, considered one of the finest examples of a Federal-era merchant's townhouse standing in Baltimore.

Faced with a tight budget, Baltimore officials have told the curator of the Edgar Allan Poe House to draw up a plan for self sufficiency, one that nevermore depends on city funds — though it is not entirely clear whether that's possible. This news is dark, dire and woeful, but it is not unexpected. Since the City Life Museums folded in 1997, Baltimore has had a handful of historic venues — such as the Peale Museum and the H.L. Mencken House — that have either gone dark or maintained only sporadic hours.

Baltimore is selling part of the dormant City Life Museum properties to a Baltimore County couple who plan to open a 15-room bed-and-breakfast, a restaurant, an art gallery and a 180-car garage on the downtown site.The city will keep ownership of the Carroll Mansion and Shot Tower and return them to their former status as revered historical museums, averting a bitter battle over the future of the sites with historians and preservationists, including state Comptroller William Donald Schaefer.

Temperatures climbed into the 50s and gentle winds buffeted those who had gathered outside Mount Clare Mansion to celebrate its reopening and affiliation with the B&O Railroad Museum. While bystanders waited for the official ribbon-cutting ceremonies to begin last week, they reveled in the spectacular view of Baltimore from atop the gently sloping hill where Mount Clare, built in 1760, stands overlooking Southwest Baltimore's Carroll Park. The Monumental City Fife and Drum Corps, dressed in colorful period costumes and wearing tricorn hats, serenaded those waiting with a selection of peppy 18th- and 19th-century airs.

Portions of Baltimore's dormant City Life Museums property could be reopened as a museum, an urban inn and conference center, a school for youths with learning disabilities, law offices and a beer garden, depending on which ideas the city accepts.City housing officials said yesterday that they received four proposals in response to their request for bids from groups that want to own or lease six properties that were part of the Baltimore City Life Museums, a collection of city-owned attractions that closed in June 1997 because of financial problems.

FRANKLY, we don't understand what the fuss is all about. No knights in armor emerged last year to save the bankrupt City Life Museums; yet panic seems to be rising now because Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke is seeking other uses for the vacant buildings.Some organizations have informally expressed an interest in taking over parts of the former City Life main campus on Front Street, which includes the nearly unused Morton K. Blaustein exhibition center, the Carroll Mansion, 1840 House and the Center for Urban Archaeology.

Can a building completed in 1996 be a city landmark? It can if its exterior bears the reconstructed cast-iron facade from the old G. Fava Fruit Co. Baltimore's Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation voted this month to bestow landmark status on the Fava building and several other structures at 33 S. Front St., near the historic Carroll Mansion. The vote marks the first time that the preservation commission has agreed to add such a recently finished building to its landmark list, and it provides a measure of protection for the exterior by requiring that any plans for alterations be reviewed and approved by the city panel.

Anne Pomykala is set. At 63, she presides over a sumptuous Tudor-style bed-and-breakfast in Green Spring Valley, has ample time for her large family and could, if she wanted, putter around her hilltop English garden. So why are she and her husband, dentist Ronald Pomykala, taking over the closed Shot Tower and Carroll Mansion on the eastern fringe of downtown and planning to reopen them as museums? And why do they think they can succeed where the city failed - at a time when museums are scrounging for money?

T here's no mistaking a historic estate. A long driveway with old trees off a country road is one indication. Shutters that close over bubbled and wavy windows is another. Outbuildings and symmetry of construction are clues. The giveaway is the marker bearing the name of the land and home. Clynmalira, owned by Dick and Nancy Councill, rests in grand fashion on what was originally a 5,000-acre manor surveyed in 1705 for Annapolitan Charles Carroll, the attorney general. The Carroll family made little use of the land until the 19th century, when Carroll's great-great-grandson Henry Carroll built the house in 1822 out of bricks made on the property, in what is now northern Baltimore County.

Drink two glasses of Madeira wine, and take a cold bath every morning. Ride a horse for 10 to 12 miles, and hit the hay by 9 p.m. Develop good reading habits, and don't waste time on frivolity. Those were the words of advice from Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signer of the Declaration of Independence, as he led a group of visitors through his home. Follow those guidelines, and you too might live a long life, said Louis Collins, a restorationist and self-described scholar with a passion for history, who assumed the role of Maryland's "last aristocrat" yesterday at the Carroll Mansion on Lombard Street.

Charles Carroll, Barrister, and his wife, Margaret Tilghman, stare down from their portraits at the black-draped "coffin" in the parlor of Mount Clare like benign spirits contemplating their future. "He died in March of 1783," says Michael Connolly, assistant director of Mount Clare Museum House, the well-preserved home of the Carrolls. "So we used his death as sort of the basis of our interpretation of what was happening in the house at that time." Charles Carroll, Barrister was the cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who signed the Declaration of Independence.

Local preservationists are pushing Baltimore's long-dormant Carroll Mansion into the limelight, just as the area around it is buzzing with redevelopment. Carroll Museums Inc., a nonprofit group that operates the historic mansion at 800 E. Lombard St., has reopened the building for tours and made part of the first floor into the Jonestown Visitors Center, a stop on the new Heritage Walk tour from the Inner Harbor to East Baltimore. The group is making space available for art exhibits, conferences and community events at the mansion, considered one of the finest examples of a Federal-era merchant's townhouse standing in Baltimore.

Anne Pomykala is set. At 63, she presides over a sumptuous Tudor-style bed-and-breakfast in Green Spring Valley, has ample time for her large family and could, if she wanted, putter around her hilltop English garden. So why are she and her husband, dentist Ronald Pomykala, taking over the closed Shot Tower and Carroll Mansion on the eastern fringe of downtown and planning to reopen them as museums? And why do they think they can succeed where the city failed - at a time when museums are scrounging for money?

Can a building completed in 1996 be a city landmark? It can if its exterior bears the reconstructed cast-iron facade from the old G. Fava Fruit Co. Baltimore's Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation voted this month to bestow landmark status on the Fava building and several other structures at 33 S. Front St., near the historic Carroll Mansion. The vote marks the first time that the preservation commission has agreed to add such a recently finished building to its landmark list, and it provides a measure of protection for the exterior by requiring that any plans for alterations be reviewed and approved by the city panel.

Seeking an entrepreneurial approach for the 1990s, one of Baltimore's premier cultural institutions has severed a 62-year-old tie with the city government and transformed itself into an independent, nonprofit corporation.The Baltimore City Life Museums, which operates seven museums owned by the city, last year quietly became a private entity governed by a 30-member board of trustees.Its 30 employees have been transferred from the city payroll and now work for Baltimore City Life Museums Inc. The board's new president is Frank P. Bramble, chief executive officer of MNC Financial Inc.The change took effect July 1 but was not immediately announced.

Wednesday we heard the city was ready to sell off the Mencken House, the Carroll Mansion and the Shot Tower to private bidders. The next day, the mayor of Baltimore, as is his habit, said: Never mind. "We don't want to sell them away," said the mayor. "That would be too controversial."You don't hear the mayor say: "These are city treasures, damn it, and there's no way we'll sell them off."What he says is: "That would be too controversial." Too many protests from those pesky historic preservationists, right?

The Colonial Dames of America finally had enough of the historian who is directing an archaeological dig on the grounds of their precious Mount Clare Mansion in Southwest Baltimore. The descendants of the nation's oldest families - hardly revolutionaries, despite their roots and pedigree - conspired, then barred her from the Carroll Park mansion, which they have meticulously maintained for more than eight decades, mostly at their own expense. They secretly changed the locks. In turn, the historian, Pamela F. Charshee, called the city to have the locks changed back and to give her the key to a basement field office and bathroom.

Bloomfield Manor, a gracious home on a tree-covered hill above Sykesville, has been the scene of political gatherings, formal weddings, glittering balls and elegant soirees for three centuries. One more reception was held at Bloomfield Manor last week, drawing dozens of guests, town officials, historians and a few prospective buyers. The fully restored 4,000-square-foot home, which is on the National Trust for Historic Preservation and was the Great American Home Award Winner in 1995, will be auctioned at 1 p.m. today.