Farmhouse

Before 1998, John and Bobbin Kreider lived for 16 years in Howard County in a saltbox-style home known to their neighbors in Dayton as the "Red House. " Bobbin Kreider was happy with their 17 acres, where she was able to keep three horses. That was before she saw an advertisement in an equerry newsletter on the attributes of a 27-acre horse farm with barn, stalls, outbuildings and a two-story farmhouse, circa 1880. And it was only nine miles from the "Red House. " After looking at the property in Sykesville, she was thrilled, but her husband was less so. "I loved the property but hated the house," said John Kreider, 58, recalling the tiny, chopped-up rooms.

Do you begin inside, with the airy rooms, chef's kitchen and four fireplaces? Or outdoors, with the sculpted gardens, rolling green hills and tranquil riding trails on 78 acres? If you can't make up your mind about 16835 Gerting Road in Monkton, choose something in between: the screened-in sleeping porch and the poolside cabana. Designed by local architect Faith Nevins Hawks and built in 2001, the 1812 replica farmhouse "is timeless," said Realtor Heidi Krauss, who represented the seller.

Rick and Mickey Price live on a 340-acre farm in northern Baltimore County. Their rambling, two-story farmhouse sits high and exposed on the land's crest, with acres upon acres rolling softly below and the nearest neighbor over a quarter-mile away. While their house has an old-homestead, Colonial feel, it was custom-built just 11 years ago. The couple's story is inextricably intertwined with the house, which along with their marriage, is a study in new beginnings. "Dick, his first wife and my late husband and I knew each other for over 40 years," said Mickey Price, 79, explaining that they were all involved in the Maryland South Delaware district of the Optimists.

It is not often that a visitor receives a Dickensian welcome at the front gate of a historic Monkton home decorated for the holidays. Dressed to the nines in fresh greenery, this circa 1840, white-washed brick structure wears red bows and pine cones on green wreaths like haute couture. Two women arrange garlands to sweep the length and breadth of the white picket fence surrounding a small front garden. Large brass lanterns on either side of the front entrance light the steps up to the front door.

A Woodbine woman returned home yesterday afternoon and found her two-story farmhouse in blazes, Howard County fire officials said.The 3:36 p.m. fire, which apparently started in the kitchen and spread to the living room, caused at least $25,000 in damage to the home in the 1700 block of Saint Michael Road.Firefighters from Lisbon, from Mount Airy in Carroll County and from Damascus in Prince George's County reponded to the incident and extinguished the fire about 4:30 p.m.Jan Gordon called 911 when she came home and discovered the fire, said Howard Fire and Rescue Battalion Chief Don Howell.

The Howard County school board decided last night to build two new schools in North Laurel without destroying a 150-year-old farmhouse that residents had fought to save.But the compromise does not satisfy all the concerns of the residents, who fear that the revised plan still may cause traffic problems and diminish the area's rural character."We're still worried about access to ball fields scheduled to be built on the site . . . and we're afraid that building a two-story middle school so close to the house will harm the views from the house and the scenic road," said Gregory Fries, who has led the community's fight against the plan.

Do you begin inside, with the airy rooms, chef's kitchen and four fireplaces? Or outdoors, with the sculpted gardens, rolling green hills and tranquil riding trails on 78 acres? If you can't make up your mind about 16835 Gerting Road in Monkton, choose something in between: the screened-in sleeping porch and the poolside cabana. Designed by local architect Faith Nevins Hawks and built in 2001, the 1812 replica farmhouse "is timeless," said Realtor Heidi Krauss, who represented the seller.

A 46-year-old Anne Arundel County man was unaccounted for early today after a fire in a Severn farmhouse, authorities said. Firefighters called to the 7600 block of Plumbers Pasture Lane about 10 p.m. found a two-story house engulfed in flames, according to the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. Two members of the household made it to safety, but the status of the third was unknown, a department spokesman said.

An old farmhouse in Huntingtown that preservationists hoped to keep from bulldozers was knocked down this month after attempts to save it failed. No one was able to salvage the house, which was blocking a housing development going up in this part of Calvert County, despite some interest, said Kirsti Uunila, historic preservation specialist for the county's Department of Planning and Zoning. The house was free to whoever was willing to move it from the site. An Anne Arundel County businessman, E. Steuart Chaney, had hoped to save at least one of the outbuildings, but a communications breakdown kept him from getting to the property in time, he said.

Firefighters spent five hours battling a two-alarm blaze that destroyed a Lothian farmhouse Wednesday, county fire officials said.No one was injured in the fire at 6 p.m. in the 400 block of Barksdale Farm Road, but it took nearly 50 firefighters to control the flames. The cause of the fire, which started in the living room, is under investigation.According to EMS/Fire/Rescue spokesman Capt. Allan Graves, neighbors in the rural area on Bayard Road called 911 after they saw smoke in the woods.

Bob Sleeper is a man who cannot be fenced in. While many of his friends are city dwellers, he craves the great outdoors. For this reason, he and his wife, Marian, left a large home in suburban Marriottsville in favor of an old — and much smaller — farmhouse in Westminster. Sleeper's first love has always been the land — 5 acres in this instance, with a two-story, 2,700-square-foot bank barn on a knoll. "We downsized the house but upsized the property," said Sleeper, a 60-year-old employee of Constellation Energy.

When Nancy Dorman and Stanley Mazaroff first saw the old stone farmhouse in northern Baltimore County, it had holes in the walls and raccoons in the basement. But it stood in the middle of 85 acres of farmland, with cows grazing in the distance and sweeping views of rolling countryside all around. That's what convinced them to buy it as a second home. "We always wanted a place in Maryland that reminded us of our trips to France and Italy," Mazaroff said. "This was a little bit of Italy in Baltimore County.

Rick and Mickey Price live on a 340-acre farm in northern Baltimore County. Their rambling, two-story farmhouse sits high and exposed on the land's crest, with acres upon acres rolling softly below and the nearest neighbor over a quarter-mile away. While their house has an old-homestead, Colonial feel, it was custom-built just 11 years ago. The couple's story is inextricably intertwined with the house, which along with their marriage, is a study in new beginnings. "Dick, his first wife and my late husband and I knew each other for over 40 years," said Mickey Price, 79, explaining that they were all involved in the Maryland South Delaware district of the Optimists.

The Fitzgerald, a transit-oriented apartment and retail project in midtown Baltimore, won the Grand Design Award this month in the annual Excellence in Design program sponsored by the Baltimore chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Design Collective of Baltimore was the architect of The Fitzgerald, developed by The Bozzoto Group and named for writer and one-time Baltimore resident F. Scott Fitzgerald. The building is located at Mount Royal Avenue and Oliver Street, on the former Bolton Yards property next to the Mount Royal Cultural Center stop of the light rail system.

Phyllis L. Mowbray, former director of the Carroll County Public Library's "Library Link" program, who restored an 18th-century farmhouse with her husband, died Monday of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at Carroll Hospice Dove House. She was 88. Phyllis Louise Wagner was born in Baltimore and raised in Pikesville. She was a 1939 graduate of Franklin High School. Two years later, she became ill with tuberculosis, which forced her to be confined for a year at the state sanatorium at Sabillasville in Frederick County.

In 1719, a land grant of 1,200 acres in Howard County was presented to Thomas Worthington by Lord Baltimore. This land, along with the original structure Worthington built on it in the mid-18th century, has remained in the family to this day. Almost 300 years later, Melanie Dorsey, Thomas Worthington's great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, inherited the manor house, eight outbuildings and 133 acres of land (the rest parceled out over the...

Before 1998, John and Bobbin Kreider lived for 16 years in Howard County in a saltbox-style home known to their neighbors in Dayton as the "Red House. " Bobbin Kreider was happy with their 17 acres, where she was able to keep three horses. That was before she saw an advertisement in an equerry newsletter on the attributes of a 27-acre horse farm with barn, stalls, outbuildings and a two-story farmhouse, circa 1880. And it was only nine miles from the "Red House. " After looking at the property in Sykesville, she was thrilled, but her husband was less so. "I loved the property but hated the house," said John Kreider, 58, recalling the tiny, chopped-up rooms.

For most of us, hearth and home is a comforting place to be. When possible, many choose to work from home. For artist Keith Millison, it is the family farmhouse itself that provides inspiration. "We're on two acres, and all the land around us is farmland," he said. "This house is perfect for what I do." Millison, a retired graphic designer for IBM, is a folk artist. His paintings, primarily of houses worked in bold colors and other buildings sitting in fields of bright green and yellow tones, are hung throughout his home.