Hayfields

As the attorney for the Mangione family and Hayfields, I take exception to your editorial "Destroying local history" (Feb. 4) for two reasons.First, the editorial's focus is on the demolition of historic properties. To include Hayfields in this category is a careless error.The historic buildings and the stone wall are being adaptively reused. A great deal of attention has been given, and continues to be given, to making this an award-winning project. The historic buildings and even the nonhistoric structures are being restored to their former grandeur as the centerpiece of the country club campus.

Opponents of the newly opened Hayfields Country Club won a legal victory yesterday when Maryland's second highest court ruled that Baltimore County officials did not adequately consider the environmental impact of the golf course.The long-awaited ruling by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals will have no immediate effect on the country club, as opponents said they do not plan to seek a court order to close the facility now. The ruling, however, opens up the possibility that the county could eventually shut down the golf course even though project opponents yesterday stopped short of saying that was their goal.

With time running out before the first golfers tee off at Hayfields Country Club, opponents of the project go to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals today to keep the beloved Hunt Valley farm from becoming a golf course and housing development.A lawyer for the Valleys Planning Council, an influential land preservation group, will argue that Baltimore County erred in granting permission for the country club and adjacent housing development by failing to consider the harm the project would cause to the environment, agricultural resources and the county's history.

I REMEMBER MY outrage the day I got off the bus my las year of high school and found that a house had popped out of the meadows behind our home. We grew up taking walks back there, playing in the streams, sledding in winter. Those are our fields, I protested.Except, of course, they weren't.Many of us Baltimore countians feel similarly possessive when we drive down Shawan Road, past the historic Hayfields Farm. It's hard to watch bulldozers wrecking the fertile fields so Nick Mangione can build a golf course.

Another attempt by land preservationists to halt construction of a golf course and housing development on the 475-acre Hayfields farm in northern Baltimore County has fallen short.The Maryland Attorney General's Office issued a ruling yesterday saying, in effect, that the permit under which the work is proceeding was granted legally.Although a separate action to stop the development awaits a circuit judge's ruling, the Nicholas Mangione family is continuing work on the project, which includes an 18-hole golf course, country club and 37 single-family houses.

DEVELOPER Nicholas Mangione has begun bulldozing Baltimore County's historic Hayfields Farm, and there is nothing to be done but exhort Circuit Court Judge James T. Smith to rule on the myriad appeals of this project quickly.Otherwise, Hayfields will be either a construction site or a golf course by the time a decision is made. Legally, Mr. Mangione would have to restore the property to its prior condition if the courts rule against him, but once the topsoil is destroyed it will be impossible to return this land to its current fertile agricultural state.

As bulldozers carve out a golf course on the Hayfields Farm, neighbors are looking nervously at signs of change in northern Baltimore County -- an area of family farms and vast estates, where 1964 Preakness winner Northern Dancer was raised and fox hunts still are held.A mile west of historic Hayfields, 291 acres of Shawan Farms are for sale. To the north, Bob Hastings wonders whether it would be foolish to give up his development rights to the state to preserve 50 acres along Western Run. And the Lippy family, which has farmed Hayfields and nearby land for years, is having trouble finding acreage to rent or buy for cultivating.

With the historic Hayfields farm all but lost to the construction of a golf course and houses, a dozen Baltimore County residents are drawing a new line on development by joining to preserve one of the largest farms in the scenic Worthington Valley.The group has a $2.5 million contract to buy 291-acre Shawan Farms, a rolling tract of cornfields and woodlands that lies just a mile west of Hayfields -- and was up for grabs to developers.In a bid to slow the suburban sprawl that has spilled into the county's rural northern valleys, the group plans to form a nonprofit organization to manage the land and perhaps hold horse races there.

THE BIGGEST THREAT to Baltimore County's valleys isn't a golf course at Hayfields Farm. It's the fallacious notion that the golf course, unwelcome though it is to farmers and preservationists, spells inevitable doom for the entire neighborhood.People have been calling Hayfields -- the last rural property on Shawan Road before Hunt Valley and I-83 -- the last line of defense between agriculture and urbanization for so long that they are in danger of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. The worst thing that could happen is for landowners to start believing they may as well sell out because the golf course will ruin the world they now know.

The fate of the proposed Hayfields country club and housing development is in the hands of a Baltimore County Circuit Court judge who, as a councilman more than a decade ago, helped create the zoning restrictions at issue in the case.Judge James T. Smith Jr. was a member of the County Council between 1978 and 1985, a period in which it adopted a growth management strategy and a master plan curtailing development in the rural northern areas.Smith, who represented the 3rd District area where the Hayfields farm is located, left the council when he was appointed to the bench.

Nicholas Bosley Merryman, a farmer and Hereford cattle breeder who managed the historic Hayfields property in Cockeysville, died of Alzheimer's disease March 25 at his Parkton home. He was 96. He was born at Hayfields, where his family had resided for more than 200 years. To distinguish himself from other Merryman cousins, he used the name Nicholas Bosley Merryman of John. Family members said he thought of becoming an engineer. In 1930 he enrolled at the John Hopkins University but soon left school and became a seaman aboard the freighter Anniston City on a round-the-world voyage.

It was a sentimental stroll around Hayfields Country Club yesterday, as Bob Gilder will be sad to see the Constellation Energy Classic leave that venue and Arnold Palmer hinted that it might have been his last golf tournament. When the Champions Tour marks a decade in the Baltimore area in October 2007, the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship will be a major and move to Baltimore Country Club. Gilder will be going for a three-peat of sorts after he won his second straight CEC yesterday.

FAMILY People are buzzing about the Honey Harvest Festival at the Oregon Ridge Nature Center. The event is in its 23rd year and includes honey treats and gifts and demonstrations ranging from blacksmithing to birds of prey. Page 34 SCENE Canton's newest venue is the Mojo Side Stage, which is owned and operated by Andy Bopp, who also runs the Mojo Room and Lounge. The club played host to the band porterdavis on a recent night. Page 30 EATS Silver Spring Mining Co. adds a third location, this one in Hunt Valley, which features signature dishes including sour beef and dumplings and fried pickle spears.

What: Champions Tour Constellation Energy Classic Site: Hayfields Country Club, Hunt Valley When: Tomorrow-Sunday Directions: Take Baltimore Beltway to Interstate 83 north. Take Exit 20A for Shawan Road East and follow signs to parking areas.

In the four-year history of the Baltimore Cup, the one constant has been the final score. The streak continued yesterday on a beautiful fall day, as John Lowden coaxed home a curling 6-foot putt on the 18th green to break a tie and provide the Lowden-David Kaplan team with a 3-under-par 69, and a 36-hole better-ball total of 139 at Hayfields Country Club, Drew DeVan-Jim Winner jumped out of the pack to claim second in the 18-team field, a stroke back,...

Jim Dent, who tied for second with Doug Tewell in yesterday's Constellation Energy Classic, ordered a set of Callaway clubs and finally got them late last week, simply wishing to produce some decent play during a season in which he was 68th on the money list. That modest goal yielded $120,000 and a significant increase in confidence over the weekend as the 64-year-old Champions Tour veteran stayed in the hunt most of the way before ending up at 209, two shots back of winner Larry Nelson.

Shortly after making a 10-foot putt to save par and win last year's Greater Baltimore Classic at Hayfields Country Club, J.C. Snead got into his car and drove home to his farm in Hot Springs, Va. Unlike many of his fellow pros, Snead had no plans to stay in Baltimore for the U.S. Senior Open. "I was waffling before, and by winning the tournament, that sort of helped me make up my mind," said Snead, who has returned to Hayfields to defend his turf, if not his tournament, for the newly created $1.5 million Constellation Energy Classic, beginning tomorrow.

The $1.5 million Constellation Energy Classic will boast one of the strongest fields for a non-major on the Champions Tour this year, and it might need every one of its big names to draw the kind of big crowds that haven't always made it out to Baltimore's only professional golf tournament. With a new title sponsor and a new date - the tournament had previously been played in late June and early July over its five-year history - this year's 54-hole event is scheduled to begin Friday at Hayfields Country Club in Hunt Valley.

There will be two Senior PGA Tour events being played out this week in the Baltimore area. The $1.45 million Greater Baltimore Classic begins today at Hayfields Country Club in Hunt Valley. The other will take place mostly in the minds of the 78 players as they begin to prepare for next week's U.S. Senior Open at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills. As they hit shots today in hopes of getting in the hunt through the weekend, those who will be headed around the Beltway to Caves Valley come Monday are getting ready for a different atmosphere, a different golf course and a far different mind-set that occurs when playing in a major championship.

The state of Maryland has supposedly been in a drought this spring, but Allen Doyle said Hayfields Country Club shows no signs of thirst. "This course played hard and fast last year," said Doyle, who won the 2001 State Farm Senior Classic, held at Hayfields, in a three-hole playoff over Bruce Fleisher. "This year it looks a little softer and slower." Heavy rains last weekcultivated the conditions Doyle and the rest of the early arrivals experienced yesterday as they explored the campus in preparation for this weekend's Greater Baltimore Classic.