Loft

Two-story foyers and luxury garden bathrooms are among two of the standard features at Gilligan Homes' new townhouse community, The Point at Carroll Island, in the Middle River/Bowleys Quarters area of eastern Baltimore County. Priced from the low $140,000s, the three-story, contemporary-styled townhouses have three bedrooms and three full bathrooms, or a loft in lieu of the third bedroom. Other standard features include 9-foot ceilings on the first floor, 42-inch kitchen cabinets, work islands, and double sinks in the master bathroom.

MANY PEOPLE dream by the beach during the summer, but few run with those musings months later. That's what Westminster resident Melissa Shaffer did when she opened the Pottery Loft on Main Street. On Nov. 15, with hot cider and shortbread, and soothing music playing, Shaffer opened what she and others describe as a "stress-free place to have fun and explore your creativity." The Pottery Loft provides more than 100 pieces of unfinished pottery for customers to paint, sponge or stencil at their whim.

Yellow jackets flew in through the screen windows of her apartment above a meat market in Ellicott City. A snake crept into the kitchen of her apartment in Highland. When gas fumes filled her basement apartment in Columbia, her landlord told her it was all in her imagination. These were just a few of the shoddy rentals Nancy Sias lived in while harboring ideas of buying her perfect home. When she bought a one-bedroom condominium in Columbia, she continued dreaming about her imaginary house.

A pre-dawn fire destroyed a three-century-old log cabin yesterday in what Howard County preservationists consider a significant blow to local historic preservation efforts. The blaze at 6 a.m. claimed the cabin, which after more than a decade of rotting in an Elkridge park was on the way to restoration. The fire in Rockburn Branch Park was quickly extinguished, but the cause was unknown, said Howard County Fire Capt. Gary Jones. He said the state was investigating. No injuries were reported and the cabin was empty, he said.

IN PETER BARRY'S East Baltimore loft, one floor above the city's mayhem, photographic slides flash on a screen. Rest in Peace, they say. Ghetto Hero, they say. Barry has hundreds of them, pictures of words spray-painted on walls, each a testament to killing, and to people's pitiful attempts to memorialize the suddenly departed. "Aesthetically, I like them," says Barry. He is 55, with long, unkempt hair and glasses and a goatee that make him look a little like a pale and bony Ho Chi Minh.

BEYOND THE UPSCALE appeal and great restaurants, Federal Hill is also home to a large family community with limited off-street opportunities for children's supervised activities. Were it not for the South Baltimore Recreation Center's Friday night "Juvenile Java Club" geared toward teen-agers, there would be a virtual black hole for family activity in the area. The exception is the Southway Bowling Center at 1000 S. Charles St. -- duckpin country. From toddler to senior citizen, there is pure enjoyment in this simple sport, which is commemorating its 100th birthday this year.

Federal Hill's historic Southway Bowling Center is closing to be converted into upscale loft apartments. And Alva Brown, duckpin hall-of-famer in the city where the sport was born, said it's a tragedy. "Feel bad for the kids," said Brown, 78, who runs the 61-year-old southern Baltimore landmark with her son. "Where are they going to go?" Duckpin bowling is a celebrated Baltimore pastime that, according to local lore, was invented at a Howard Street tavern a century ago by Orioles John McGraw and Wilbert Robinson.

OAKLAND, Calif. - The phrase "back to school" has acquired new meaning here. It's time to grab the ballpoints, the highlighters and the 450-page binder of reading materials and head to the mayor's house for a little "Medieval Philosophical Latin: Part 1." Call it Jerry 101. Mayor Jerry Brown, former presidential candidate, former governor and former Jesuit seminarian, has invited the citizens of this city on the move to participate in the Oakland Table, a casual intellectual exchange over six weeks - a sort of Ivory Tower in a loft - in which two dozen scholars, headlined by the historian and philosopher Ivan Illich, have been brought in to ponder the city, citizenship and the deep meaning of it all. Part salon, part graduate-school seminar, it might be the Northern California equivalent of the Algonquin Round Table, frequented by Dorothy Parker, in 1920s New York, except that instead of whiskey and cigarettes there are tai chi and yoga classes in an adjoining room.

For more than 20 years, local architects and developers have been converting Baltimore's old loft buildings to apartments. Now a local design firm is developing plans to create apartments that have the look and feel of converted lofts -- but within an entirely new structure. Call them faux lofts. Or residences in the Neo-Loft style. The Lofts at Lexington is the name of a $30 million, 238-unit apartment building that Hord Coplan Macht of Baltimore is designing for Pennrose Properties Inc. of Philadelphia.

You wouldn't have to walk far for oysters and beer if you rented one of these lofts. A Philadelphia-based development company is proposing to build an 11-story, 250-unit apartment tower on top of the Lexington Market parking garage at Paca and Saratoga streets. The project, which would cost more than $30 million, is designed to attract graduate students from the nearby University of Maryland, Baltimore who might want the fun and convenience of living above the 218-year-old food market.