Manor House

Hidden in the heart of Glen Burnie is a manor house with a sweeping porch that looks straight out of a Ralph Lauren ad. All that's missing is the group of debutantes sipping lemonade and chatting over scones.With its freshly painted shutters, white pillars and gabled roof, the 150-year-old house appears to be the perfect setting for the fashion designer's fox-hunter crowd. Except that it's tucked in a middle-class neighborhood between Crain and Ritchie highways, two of the area's busiest roads.

Bohemia Manor story needed newer photo In regard to the article "Finding Bohemia on the Chesapeake" (Oct. 26): I grew up spending the summers in Hack's Point on the Bohemia River. This is the "small stream" that separated Herman's estate, but you failed to mention its name. Also, I notice that the picture you show was taken in 1954. If this is in fact the "house that stands today" belonging to the Bayard family, why such an old photo? Also if it is, you did not mention the remains of, what we knew as, the original manor house; which lays just to the southeast of today's manor house.

THE ISSUE: State and county officials are working to find ways to preserve 892 acres of Doughoregan Manor, the three-century-old estate and mansion of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Solutions could involve millions in public funds to acquire development rights and allow the Carroll family to renovate and repair the buildings while guarding their privacy. Or the family could develop the land. Do you think the public should have any access to this historic farm and manor house if public funds are used to help preserve the family's estate?

The Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Festival, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and next Sunday at Rockwood Museum in Wilmington, Del., will offer high-wheeled bicycles, an organ grinder, Victorian crafts and fashions, old-time music, hot-air balloons, an antique show and an old-fashioned baby parade. For children there will be clowns, puppets, a mime circus artist, a storyteller and a traveling zoo. The manor house will be open for free tours. Homemade ice cream and other food will be on sale. Admission is $4 for adults, $3 for seniors, $1 for ages 5 to 16. Shuttle service is free from Merchants Square.

Beyond the verdant crops flourishing in this summer's 100-degree heat and regular rainstorms, a guesthouse from long ago sits near the northeastern edge of the 236-acre property that is home to the Shrine of St. Anthony in western Ellicott City. Carriages once traversed this portion of the scenic land - now bisected by L-shaped Folly Quarter Road and leased out as farmland to the University of Maryland by the Conventual Franciscan Friars - to deliver guests to lively summertime parties at the estate known as Folly Quarter.

Homeland, the third jewel in Baltimore's triple crown of planned neighborhoods, followed the earlier development of Roland Park and Guilford in the 1920s. Its rich history has been chronicled by Barbara M. Stevens, who has resided in Homeland most of her life, in a recently published updated edition of her 1976 book, Homeland: History & Heritage. Proceeds from sales of the book benefit the Homeland Community Foundation Inc., which supports continued beautification of the neighborhood and preservation of its public areas through landscaping.

Tucked in Howard County's hills is a stone house that speaks to three eras: First, the 1800s, when it was built as a cottage for an estate's gardener; then the Cold War era, when an underground fallout shelter was built; and recent years, when the house was remodeled by owners John and Sandi Riegert with updated amenities. The Glenelg Manor Farm is on the Howard County Historic Sites Inventory, its fieldstone quarried from nearby Ellicott City. The house has long been parceled off from the estate that once included it, property that is now the Glenelg Country School and a residential subdivision.

In 1924, at the age of 51 and with her marriage crumbling and money nearly gone, Norah Lindsay, a beautiful English socialite of the second tier, began a career as a garden designer, working for the aristocrats who were her friends. She was determined to save her home, the Manor House at Sutton Courtenay in Oxfordshire, the place she and husband Harry Lindsay had lovingly restored, where they bore two children and where Norah became a tireless and inspired gardener. A woman who was known for her carefree life and a social calendar filled with the rich, famous and royal was suddenly earning modest wages while toiling alongside the workers employed by her society friends.

EVERY few months I get a package of clippings from my brother, who graduated from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1976.Last week his new fall edition of the "UMass Alumni Connection" arrived. And sure enough, right there in its usual prominent position was the now-traditional apocalyptic story about the horrible cutbacks and deprivations his poor old alma mater is having to endure: "Campus officials have instituted a two-month hiring freeze and are considering the elimination of as many as 100 positions to cope with a $7 million shortfall . . ."

The historic Belmont Conference Center in Elkridge could have new owners this fall and a future as a moneymaker and teaching space for Howard Community College. The Howard Community College Educational Foundation, a nonprofit corporation that raises funds for the college, is considering purchasing the 18th-century estate. Owned by the American Chemical Society, Belmont offers accommodations for conferences, weddings and retreats. The property is listed for $4.3 million. The foundation "is trying to figure out whether or not we can make the numbers work," said Mary Ellen Duncan, president of HCC. The foundation plans to study the purchase proposal until Aug. 2, when it will report its findings to the college's board of trustees.