House Tour

The Society for the Preservation of Federal Hill and Fells Point hosts its annual home and garden tour on Mother's Day, May 12. The tour will include, as usual, some of the well-known sites in the neighborhood such as the Robert Long House (circa 1765) and Colonial garden and the eclectic garden known as "the Palace on Dallas. " New to the tour is the recently renovated home of Jon and Lauren Cole, which was built in 1790 on Aliceanna Street. The brick home includes many period design details, including a marble step at the front entrance and a detailed door frame.

The Society for the Preservation of Federal Hill and Fells Point hosts its annual home and garden tour on Mother's Day, May 12. The tour will include, as usual, some of the well-known sites in the neighborhood such as the Robert Long House (circa 1765) and Colonial garden and the eclectic garden known as "the Palace on Dallas. " New to the tour is the recently renovated home of Jon and Lauren Cole, which was built in 1790 on Aliceanna Street. The brick home includes many period design details, including a marble step at the front entrance and a detailed door frame.

The 24th annual Butchers Hill house tour is scheduled next week, with the Southeast Baltimore neighborhood association opening 12 historic homes to the public. The Baltimore neighborhood is north of Fells Point and Canton. The event is scheduled from noon to 5 p.m. Oct. 12. Tickets are $15 the day of the tour and $12 in advance. For more information, log on to www.butchershill.org or call Anne Belcher at 410-675-2795 or Sue Noonan at 410-522-6773.

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.

When the Mount Airy Centennial Committee was trying to plan activities for the town's 100th birthday this year, one idea was a repeat of an event from a couple of years ago -- a historic house tour.Set for May 21, the centennial tour will include 10 old houses and three churches, lunch, dinner and a play about the town.The day will start at 11:30 a.m. with lunch until 2:30 p.m. at Calvary United Methodist Church. Lunch is $4 per person. Later, the church will serve dinner from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. for $5.50 per person.

TAKE A WALK through history this weekend and find out how people lived here in an earlier century. New Windsor Heritage Committee is holding its "Legends and House Tour" from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday. This year's tour will be self-directed, said Terry Wiley, a member of the tour committee. It will include five houses, two of which will be open to the public for the first time. "And there will be storytellers stationed at appropriate locations along the tour path," Wiley added. "They'll be wearing historic period costumes."

GETTYSBURG, Pa. -- Tonight in the stone cellar of a 182-year-old house on Baltimore Street, Patti O'Day will spook listeners with tales of Civil War soldiers whose spirits may still be roaming along this famous battleground.Whether the ghosts of Confederate sharpshooters who once secured a vantage point in the home's garret will sing, as they are sometimes said to do, can't be predicted. But Gettysburg's first organized haunted house tour hopes to scare fright-seekers just the same."This not like some haunted barn," says Bob Wright, one of the tour's organizers.

Some of the most beautiful homes in Maryland are in Carroll County, and on Sunday you will have a chance to see a dozen of Northwest Carroll's prettiest properties.Beginning at midday, you can join the Annual Soroptimist House Tour, a driving tour of six homes in the countryside, or the Historic Uniontown Tour, a walking tour through a historic district of old homes decorated for the holidays. If you're really energetic, you can visit all of the homes before both tours end at 5 pm.In Uniontown, six private homes, two churches, an old schoolhouse and a bank will be open to the public.

The tallies are complete in Westminster and Sykesville: Record ticket sales for home tours have the two towns singing glad tidings of joy. Homeowners decorated for the holidays and opened their doors to visitors from across the state two weeks ago - all in the name of historic preservation and fund raising. The Westminster Holiday House Tour of eight homes was an easy walk along Ridge Road, and the most successful in the event's history. It drew more than 1,000 visitors to the Carroll County seat and raised about $9,000 for the Community Foundation of Carroll County, according to Shawn Siders, the city's assistant town planner, who helped organize the biannual event.

For the first time in 38 years, Soroptimist International of Westminster has canceled its Christmas house tour after some of the participants dropped out of the popular event.The tour, the main fund-raiser for the service organization's annual nursing scholarship, was scheduled for Dec. 14. It would have featured homes and churches in the Sykesville area for the second consecutive year."It's a terrible disappointment," said Cindy Franz, a Soroptimist club member. "You can't go out at the last minute and ask houses to participate."

It wasn't until Karen Koch saw pictures of her house in a local magazine that she realized how terrific it was. Last spring, she agreed to a photographic house tour for a friend, who was the editor. "I saw the pictures and I thought, 'Damn. It looks good.'" Soon she will see if everybody agrees. Her 1920s four-square in Annapolis' Murray Hill community will be among the 10 homes open Nov. 4 and 5 for the 20th annual Annapolis by Candlelight house tour. "We've put so much blood, sweat and tears into this house," said Koch, the owner of Miss Nancy's Fancy Bakery in Annapolis.

Colonial Players' current offering of Peter Shaffer's 1987 comedy "Lettice and Lovage" is a rare treat for anyone who appreciates thoughtful, insightful humor about strong women. The plot centers on Lettice Douffet, an eccentric, imaginative tour guide for historic houses. Another fascinating character shares the stage in Charlotte "Lotte" Schoen, Lettice's bureaucratic opponent, who demands historical authenticity and proper decorum from tour guides. Lettice finds the history of 16th-century Fustian House as drab as its architecture.

State and local officials joined Shaun Donovan, the nation's top housing official, on a tour Friday of construction efforts that they hope will give residents of a blighted corner of West Baltimore affordable and environmentally minded housing. The development, which aims to renovate or build 111 low-income apartments by the end of this year, is in the Poppleton neighborhood, where boarded-up buildings sit alongside tidy, well-kept homes. The Department of Housing and Urban Development provided $1.5 million of federal stimulus funding to outfit apartments in the development with features that include double-pane windows, cabinets free of formaldehyde and energy-efficient appliances.

The Anne Arundel County Historical Society has opened the historic Benson-Hammond House and North Browse and Buy Shoppe at Aviation Boulevard and Andover Road in Linthicum for the season. Tours are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Group tours are by appointment. Information: 410-760-9679.

Residents of five historic Carroll homes will open their doors Saturday, hoping to encourage others to restore the worthwhile old rather than build all new. The Carroll County Historic Preservation Commission and Historic Uniontown Inc. have organized a bus tour that promises visitors a behind-the-scenes look at living in homes that date to the 19th century and earlier. The preservation group chose homes in Westminster and Uniontown that it said blends historic roots and fabric with gentle modernizations that integrate contemporary living.

When Harry Brosenne began work on his newly purchased Victorian house in August 1988, it had drop ceilings in two of the rooms (with bare beams behind them), unattractive yellow and blue paint throughout and a decrepit third floor that literally had not been touched for decades.By December, the rooms shone with new paint jobs and wallpaper. The drop ceilings were gone and the original 10-foot plaster ceilings restored, and graceful period fixtures replaced bare light bulbs. The oak floors, bordered by dark strips of teak, had been cleaned and sealed, and polished to a soft gleam with a tough wax designed for bowling alleys.