Formstone

When Loretta Stachowski noticed her Canton rowhouse's Formstone facade had cracked and faded, she envisioned a colorful future for the cement house covering that became a part of Baltimore's residential architecture during the 1940s. So a few years ago, Stachowski and her husband, Richard, decided to have the Formstone painted. It was a less expensive choice than the more trendy effort to remove the faux stones that hide many of the brick facades in Baltimore. And Stachowski liked being part of something new. "It's brighter, it's cleaner, and it's different," said Loretta Stachowski, 64, whose South Ellwood Avenue home is done in an ivory and brick-red scheme with black shutters and window planters.

A multicolored grouping of four clapboard rowhouses in Fells Point stands out like Gerbera daisies against the Formstone and brick fronts of its neighbors on either side. Architect Myrna Poirier calls one of these gems home and will soon invite visitors beyond her threshold as part of the Historic Harbor House Tour of Fells Point on Mother's Day. In keeping with the facade of her home, the interior is a color-infused, uplifting space. "Color is so important," she said. "A lot of people don't realize what color does for your spirits," pointing to an open interior 50 feet deep, with soft pastel paint on the walls in each room, richly embellished textiles from all over the world hanging on them and the morning sun bursting through ceiling skylights.

A multicolored grouping of four clapboard rowhouses in Fells Point stands out like Gerbera daisies against the Formstone and brick fronts of its neighbors on either side. Architect Myrna Poirier calls one of these gems home and will soon invite visitors beyond her threshold as part of the Historic Harbor House Tour of Fells Point on Mother's Day. In keeping with the facade of her home, the interior is a color-infused, uplifting space. "Color is so important," she said. "A lot of people don't realize what color does for your spirits," pointing to an open interior 50 feet deep, with soft pastel paint on the walls in each room, richly embellished textiles from all over the world hanging on them and the morning sun bursting through ceiling skylights.

March 11, 2012 Seven-baker-twenty-four unit turns at Mosher and rumbles past that stretch of Appleton Street where Gene Cassidy took two in the head for the company, the first one stealing his eyesight, the second lodging in his brain beyond the skill of a surgeon's knife. Cassidy was 27 then, not even four years on the job, strong and lucky and hard-headed Irish enough that he refused to do the obvious and inevitable thing. He did not die. At University Hospital that night, the other patrol officers and detectives were told it was certain, that their friend would not make it. But Cassidy breathes still, and Appleton and Mosher looks much as it did in October 1987, when Cassidy tumbled out of his radio car to jack up a man wanted on an assault warrant.

As a child, Lorraine Whittlesey was a member of TV's Peanut Gallery, helping make a star of an excitable, squeaky-voiced marionette named Howdy Doody. Next weekend, she'll be sitting in the audience at the Theatre Project , watching the world premiere of her musical based on a contentedly clueless comic-strip Pinhead named Zippy. The symmetry of such a creative continuum isn't lost on Whittlesey. She laughs heartily at the notion that there's a straight line connecting Howdy, the loose-limbed child's puppet that played sidekick to Buffalo Bob Smith for decades, to Zippy, an often befuddling, if not befuddled, observer of modern society whose non-sequiturs have become unwitting pop-culture catchphrases.

I love a passionate woman and, after talking with Lillian Bowers, I get the distinct impression that no woman could be more passionate.About Formstone.She's the self-proclaimed Queen of Formstone, and people have taken to calling her that. She is making what she calls a "comic documentary" about the ubiquitous plaster coating that smothered block after block of rowhouse Baltimore. She has two working titles for the video. One is, "Formstone: Friend or Faux." The other, which I prefer, is, "Formstone, Taken For Granite."

It's an unfortunate fact of life for old houses that when something begins to go wrong -- say, a patch of shingle siding needs replacement -- the owners may choose a short-sighted solution that is even "wrong-er." And subsequent owners are left to deal with the problems.That's the case for a reader in Baltimore:"Four years ago we bought a Victorian house (built in 1910) that originally had a brown shingle exterior," she writes. "In the late '50s formstone was applied on top of the shingles to the entire house.

Tall, leafy trees cast cool shadows across the two-story house sited on a broad, well-trimmed lawn in rural Kingsville, where thick woods provide a verdant backdrop for the neighborhood's Formstone jewel.Formstone -- in Kingsville?Right. There, among the clapboard and shingle Cape Cods, the brick ranchers and split-levels and the upscale new McMansions, stands the area's only known example of the sculpted, multicolored, pseudo-stone facade that came to define faraway rowhouse Baltimore."Mom and Dad got older, and they wanted a house that was pretty maintenance-free," recalled Harry Sanders, whose parents' Jerusalem Road home got "the treatment" in the early 1970s, when thousands of other Formstone homeowners were pulling the stuff off.And what a treatment it got from David Pidcoe, Mr. Sanders' cousin, who was in the business.

Removing formstone is usually an issue for owners of brick rowhouses, but some time ago we got a letter from the owner of a frame house that had been covered with the concrete-like substance applied like icing and carved into stone-like blocks.Since formstone is not an original surface, we're strong advocates of removing it, and restoring the surface underneath.That's usually fairly easy in a brick dwelling -- unless the formstone was applied over soft brick or over a large crack.The frame-house owner wanted to restore the home's Victorian look.

By all accounts, Aado Vaigro shouldn't have been up on the scaffolding.It wasn't because the temperature threatened to crack 100 degrees, nor was it because the 68-year-old was stepping between buckets and trowels on shaky planks three stories in the air.It was because he was installing Formstone, the fossil of fake house fronts.In the 1990s, the working words in restoration are natural brick and exposed beams -- not the glittery faux stone that has been giving homeowners intent on rehabbing so much trouble.

Most people, unless headed to a specific address, will simply drive past the two-story row houses that line the curb along Fleet Street in East Baltimore. Few are wider than 15 feet; their only mark of individuality is usually found in the variety of front doors. Many of these houses, dating to 1910, are examples of exterior brick restoration, while others still bask in the Formstone glory of 1940's exterior home improvement. Alex Dyadyura, a computer programmer with Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, purchased one of these houses less than a year ago. Secure in his position after almost three years of service, the time was ripe for moving from his rented house in Patterson Park.

Six months after its owner started a renovation, Barfly's Pub is finally open. The Locust Point bar, which has taken over Rafters' old space on Fort Avenue, had its grand opening last Friday and has been in opening mode for about two weeks. It has been remade as a casual neighborhood bar with an ample beer menu and several wine options. Already, it's drawing small crowds, even on the Monday night I went. Owner Michael Leeds bills it as an "upscale dive bar," but Barfly's still needs some time to develop the personality of a dive and spruce itself up to be "upscale.

As a child, Lorraine Whittlesey was a member of TV's Peanut Gallery, helping make a star of an excitable, squeaky-voiced marionette named Howdy Doody. Next weekend, she'll be sitting in the audience at the Theatre Project , watching the world premiere of her musical based on a contentedly clueless comic-strip Pinhead named Zippy. The symmetry of such a creative continuum isn't lost on Whittlesey. She laughs heartily at the notion that there's a straight line connecting Howdy, the loose-limbed child's puppet that played sidekick to Buffalo Bob Smith for decades, to Zippy, an often befuddling, if not befuddled, observer of modern society whose non-sequiturs have become unwitting pop-culture catchphrases.

Marsha and John Wise bought their home six years ago after losing out on another house in the same neighborhood because they had not made an offer quickly enough. The couple had fallen in love with the community of Hunting Ridge, a historic district near Baltimore's western edge known for solid homes in varied architectural styles amid huge trees and rolling terrain. They really wanted to live there - enough to write to community leaders, inquiring if they knew any homeowners in their midst who would be interested in selling.

When Nancy Haragan was growing up in Louisville, Ky., she and her five siblings were introduced by their mother to a world in which the arts, civil rights, faith and civic responsibility merged into a way of life that left no possibility behind. They took painting classes at the library, saw the city come to terms with school integration, and met the women their mother taught at the Spalding University program she established for returning students. THE MARQUEE BALL / / 9 p.m. Saturday / / Creative Alliance at the Patterson / / 410-276-1651 or creativealliance.

Sometimes the big chain restaurants -- the ones with the loud commercials on television and the paste-on-a-smile themes -- remind of a gaudy cubic zirconium ring. They're so bright, with their oversized portions, colorful menus and "Hi, I'm Suzy" service, but they're not the real thing. And then there's Brewers Hill, a small, imperfect diamond among local restaurants. It is a real Baltimore restaurant, not part of a chain, and in its own way it s just right. Given the choice between a giant fake hunk of glitter and a small diamond, I think most of us would choose the diamond.

Phil Minion has turned his 1969 Plymouth Valiant into a Pigtown rowhouse on wheels.It's got Formstone siding, a pressed-tin ceiling and classic painted screens in the windows. Not to mention an artificial grass lawn on the hood and a white picket fence on the front bumper.Mr. Minion is not an artist by trade. He laminates menus for a living. But three years ago, while drinking at a Hollins Market gin mill, he was suddenly and inexplicably inspired."I was sitting in Scallio's Tavern, drinking tequila and 'Natty Boh,' and I decided to do it. I told my friends I was going to Formstone my car," said Mr. Minion, a 36-year-old who once helped make the world's largest painting of Elvis on black velvet.

Eric Swegle worries that Formstone is fast becoming an endangered specimen of the true Baltimore style. He dreads the day when the last chunk of pastel plaster Formstone is chipped from the last Highlandtown rowhouse."

When Loretta Stachowski noticed her Canton rowhouse's Formstone facade had cracked and faded, she envisioned a colorful future for the cement house covering that became a part of Baltimore's residential architecture during the 1940s. So a few years ago, Stachowski and her husband, Richard, decided to have the Formstone painted. It was a less expensive choice than the more trendy effort to remove the faux stones that hide many of the brick facades in Baltimore. And Stachowski liked being part of something new. "It's brighter, it's cleaner, and it's different," said Loretta Stachowski, 64, whose South Ellwood Avenue home is done in an ivory and brick-red scheme with black shutters and window planters.

Hudson Street is a wide roadway in East Baltimore's Canton neighborhood. In the long shadow of the American Can Co.'s high smokestack, its circa 1910 rowhouses are modestly constructed of brick. Many exteriors bear the 1950s emblem of then-trendy Formstone covering. These houses alternate between two and three stories. Stained-glass door transoms and hand-painted window screens lend a particular piece of individuality to an otherwise monotonous vista of urban housing. Four marble steps in the 2900 block lead to the soft brown, Formstone home of Kelly Atterbury and her fiance, Gordon Barma.