NEWS
By Marie Gullard | October 11, 2009
These are big houses on tiny lots," Eileen Jacobs says of her two-story, all-brick traditional home in Owings Mills. Her decorating challenge, therefore, was not the exterior but rather the interior space of 3,400 square feet, not counting the basement. She was more than up to the task, and while the house was being constructed, she designed rooms and bought furnishings working only from floor plans. "The [design] was all in my mind's eye before we moved," she said. "One to two months afterward, I had everything in place.
NEWS
By Marie Gullard | July 12, 2009
When they became engaged last year, Ed Stone, a Perry Hall native and Kathy Merz, who lived downtown in Federal Hill, began to look for a home. They wanted a new place where they could start their life together. "[Ed] didn't want the city," Kathy Stone remembered. "And I didn't think I could leave it." Then the couple found the new community of Quarry Lake, northwest of the city off Greenspring Avenue. "It was a great compromise," Kathy Stone remembered. "[Quarry Lake] has shops, restaurants and a drugstore for me and greenery and open spaces for Ed."
NEWS
By Andrea F. Siegel | May 17, 2009
When Todd Taylor suggested to his wife of three decades that they become the fourth generation to live in his family's Sears Roebuck kit house in Ellicott City, she thought he was kidding. They couple had finally gotten their place the way they liked it, and the old homestead needed more than substantial work. "He said, 'You could have a dog,' and I said, 'I want carte blanche and two dogs,' " Candace Taylor recounted. Deal. The couple wanted the home to reflect its history. But they wanted it to suit their family's lifestyle, exude a welcome to friends and be thought of by Todd's sister and brother as the family home.
NEWS
By Marie Gullard | May 10, 2009
It is easy to overlook the stunning black lacquer piano just inside the marble-tiled entrance of Bill Magruder and Stanley Scherr's Mount Washington home. Only a focused eye would spy anything other than the spectacular wall of glass just beyond the foyer. "The windows and the brightness sold me on the house," said Scherr, 59, a teen outreach worker. No denying either of those features. In the cathedral-ceilinged living room (a step up from the foyer), the entire back wall is a window looking out onto a wrought-iron and glass-furnished patio where a perfectly manicured lawn - including sea grass - surrounds a 32-foot by 14-foot heated, saltwater pool.
NEWS
By Andrea F. Siegel | April 5, 2009
A traditional floor plan? Almost. Lots of light? Absolutely. Convenient storage? Everywhere. Those were among the key points in discussions with an architect when Mary Ellen and Leon Kaplan sought to have a home built in Cockeysville 15 years ago. They wanted a traditional house with substantial areas open not only for guests, but also so they could watch their four children. "We've had parties with up to 100 people, and you can do more in the summer when you use the patios," Mary Ellen Kaplan said.
NEWS
By Andrea F. Siegel | March 8, 2009
The white house on San Domingo Creek in St. Michaels is where Jeanne Ruesch has taken to stretching summer weekends into five days with extended family and friends. The home, which has a cottage look and is featured in the current issue of Architectural Digest, reflects what Ruesch dreamed of in a retreat: an inviting place in harmony with the Eastern Shore's slower pace of life and a world away from suburban Washington, where her primary home is. In many ways, it embodies the vision her late husband had for an idyllic escape that lets all comers be as lively or private as they'd like.
NEWS
By Andrea F. Siegel | February 1, 2009
Growing up, Louise Finkelstein loved visiting her parents' friends' home in Owings Mills, associating the spacious house with good times. Years later, when the house became available, she was ready to make it hers. That meant putting on an addition that was easy to maintain while offering even more space for entertaining a crowd. Over more than three decades, the addition of a game room and family room leading to an in-ground outdoor pool and whirlpool has been the venue for so many children's birthday parties, family events and gatherings for grown-up friends that barely a week has gone by without guests, she said.
NEWS
By Andrea F. Siegel | January 25, 2009
With warming lights built-in over the kitchen buffet, a club-style bar and game rooms in the basement, and a backyard pool and pool house, Kandi Slade's home in Baltimore County's Wakefield community has long been the place to gather. There have been holiday parties, pool parties, big family dinners, children's birthday parties and a later addition - grandchildren's parties. "I have had a Christmas Eve party in this house since 1979," she said, describing Santa Claus handing gifts to kids and groups gathering for songs at the player piano.
NEWS
By Andrea F. Siegel | December 21, 2008
On top of one of the small hills in Dayton sits a brick house that backs up to a wooded preserve. For Michael and Hilary Yoder, it's offered a quiet place to unwind, raise children and operate a lighting business. From the breakfast area by the kitchen, walls of windows look out to the forested area and the wildlife living there. Much of the year, the choice evening spot is a wet one outdoors. The lower tier of the deck has a hot tub that seats six, and the semi-rural location of the home provides a great view of the night sky. "We go in the hot tub almost every night just to look at the stars here.
NEWS
By Andrea F. Siegel | December 14, 2008
To make their young son's room distinctive as well as create easier access to attic storage, Katherine and Robert Dwyer ripped out the ceiling of his bedroom. They left the exposed wood beams and added a skylight and a loft, reachable by ladder. That was 20 years ago. A few years later, in their daughter's room, they built an enclosed area they called a "nest," with louvered doors and a window. Those bedrooms in the Ten Hills house in the city were fun spaces for the children back then.