Farmhouse

FREDERICK -- Ringed by barbed wire and tract homes, the Sebastian Derr House can be found in both a Frederick subdivision and on real estate death row. It faces what some call a senseless execution and others a merciful end.Either way, it is an unhappy final chapter for one of Frederick County's oldest buildings, a log-and-stone farmhouse historians have described as one of the most important early examples of German-American architecture in the mid-Atlantic region.But...

George Washington never slept there. But preservationists still think Willowbrook -- a Cockeysville farmhouse that represents a vanishing way of life in Baltimore County -- is worth saving.They fear that the dilapidated 1850 clapboard home on Warren Road east of York Road will be bulldozed soon if a buyer is not found. A six-month agreement between the Maryland Historical Trust and the developer, Southern Land Co. Inc., to market the house expires tomorrow.After that, the company, which subdivided the surrounding 33 acres into 45 single-family lots, plans to destroy the house, erasing its historical imprint from the landscape.

"A Christmas in Carroll" will be the theme of this year's annual holiday farmhouse tour at Carroll County Farm Museum tomorrow through Sunday and Dec. 10-12.Featuring a musical holiday theme, the event features uniquely decorated settings for different Christmas carols in the farmhouse rooms.The museum's official Christmas tree will be lighted at 6: 30 p.m. Saturday by the county commissioners. Steve Hersh will play traditional Christmas music on the keyboards. The public is welcome to sing along during the ceremony.

Four members of a Kent County family apparently died early yesterday in a two-alarm fire that destroyed their rural Eastern Shore farmhouse.Four bodies -- burned beyond recognition -- were found in thecharred ruins of the 2 1/2 -story home, said Deputy State Fire Marshal Bob Thomas.The bodies were believed to be those of David Noe, his wife, and their 17-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter, who had moved five years ago from Delaware to the frame farmhouse on Millington Smyrna Road, midway between the Kent County town of Millington and the Delaware border.

An elderly Manchester man died yesterday evening in a two-alarm fire at a house neighbors called "an accident waiting to happen." Allen Gosnell, a spokesman for the state fire marshal's office, said the man's body was recovered from the back of a 2 1/2-story frame farmhouse shortly after 6 p.m. An elderly woman who lived in the house was uninjured but was taken to Carroll County General Hospital in Westminster for evaluation, authorities said. Authorities did not immediately identify the occupants.

In a boost to its 2-year-old fund-raising campaign, Hampton National Historic Site recently received $200,000 in National Park Service funding to help restore the farmhouse and slave quarters at the 18th-century plantation in Towson.The money will go toward turning a dilapidated, pre-Revolutionary War farmhouse -- considered to be the oldest home in Baltimore County -- into a multipurpose center and to open one of three slave quarters to the public. The 63-acre site has about 22 buildings, including barns and a dairy.

Eleanor K. Kahle, an avid hiker and world traveler who with her husband restored an old farmhouse overlooking the Elk River, died of respiratory failure Monday at Ivy Manor Assisted Living in Ellicott City. She was 90. Born and raised Eleanor Kennedy in Philadelphia, she graduated from West Philadelphia High School, where she was an accomplished athlete. After earning her bachelor's degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania in 1937, she taught home economics for 12 years in Philadelphia public schools.

In January 2005, after 26 years of Annapolis living, Sydney Brookes answered what she called "the call of the country," placing an ad in the Tidewater Trader that read: "Seeking small, well maintained, updated, two-story home in or near Chestertown [in] nice, quiet neighborhood [with] garage ... perennials, wooden floors, open floor plan." In August 2005, she moved into her dream home, which she lovingly - and laughingly - refers to as hodge-podge lodge, so named for its idiosyncrasies, both inside and out. Built circa 1871, her farmhouse sits on a pie-shaped, lushly landscaped half-acre wedged between two narrow lanes about a mile from the Eastern Shore town's historic downtown.

Communities all along Bayside Beach Road were invited to tour the newly renovated Cook Farmhouse at Hancock's Resolution Park Tuesday evening by the county Department of Recreation and Parks.The open house was the community's only chance to view the refurbished building before it is occupied by tenants next week.The farmhouse, built in 1850, was moved to its current site in the largely undeveloped park more than a year ago. That one-mile move generated quite a bit of interest among neighbors in the area.

An old farmhouse turned lumberyard on Route 175 in Jessup soon will become a local showcase for environmental friendliness and an incubator for green company start-ups, if Stanley Sersen has his way. The president of Architectural Support Group Inc., a Glen Burnie company that helps builders incorporate solar panels and windmills to condominiums and apartments, plans to transform the aged brown and yellow eyesore into an office, resource center, incubator...