Manor House

The Belmont Conference Center, a historic Elkridge manor house with an 82-acre estate, is for sale, its owner announced yesterday. After being its steward for more than 20 years, the board of directors of the Washington-based American Chemical Society decided to sell the property because Belmont didn't fit the group's plans. "Having a conference center was not really aligned with our strategic mission" of being the premiere provider of chemical information in the world, said the society's executive director and chief executive officer, Madeleine Jacobs.

FORTY-FIVE YEARS ago, after his team won the world championship in sudden death overtime, Arthur Donovan, legendary Baltimore Colt and Falstaff of American football, invested his bonus in a country club without a golf course. But while the Valley Country Club, in the Riderwood area of Baltimore County, might not have had 18 holes and fabulous fairways, it had the grand, 19th-century hilltop manor house and 12 acres of a former dairy farm. With Artie Donovan's winnings from the December 1958 NFL championship, it soon had tennis courts, a snack bar, a clubhouse and the huge swimming pool that more than 400 members, their families and friends still enjoy each summer.

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.

As a U.S. Army private in England in the final years of World War II, Hervie Haufler could think of few things more boring than code-breaking. He and the others in the 6811th Signal Security Detachment felt, at times, like mere stenographers. In a drafty stone manor house in the London suburbs, they listened to blips on a radio receiver and copied down German secret code until their hands cramped, their eyes hurt and they longed for a pint at the local pub. "I was constantly battling weariness," he recalls.

It was a warm, drizzly day as we stood in the garden of Sotterley Plantation, a former tobacco farm in St. Mary's County. At our feet, plants and flowers were pushing through the moist rows of dirt. In the distance, past green rolling fields, the Patuxent River meandered toward the Chesapeake Bay. But my 5-year-old daughter and I were not focused on the garden or the magnificent view. We were looking at a small brick building in front of us. Catherine Elder, executive director of the Sotterley Foundation, said it had once been used as a "necessary."

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.

CHAPEL POINT -- St. Thomas Manor at Chapel Point is a Maryland architectural landmark, the earliest surviving Georgian mansion in the state, according to the Historical Society of Charles County. Since it was constructed in 1741, the manor house has been a residence for Jesuits. And it was they who built the adjoining church in 1798, naming it St. Ignatius after St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of their Roman Catholic order, the Society of Jesus. Today, the church and manor house are part of the oldest continuously active Catholic parish in the United States, according to a historical marker at the entrance.

At the end of a milelong, one-lane road lined with trees stands an Elkridge manor house built when Maryland was a colony. It's a metaphorical island in a county where post-1960s architecture dominates, a literal island surrounded by the vast Patapsco Valley State Park. Named for its view, Belmont - "beautiful mountain" - was home to a prominent Howard County family for generations. But unlike some of the county's brick-and-mortar survivors of history, Belmont is as lively today as it ever was. It's a conference and retreat center.

Long before Maryland had a State House in Annapolis, its leaders met on a tobacco plantation called St. John's Freehold in the original state capital, St. Mary's City. The owner was John Lewger, a former Anglican priest who became the first provincial secretary for the Maryland colony in 1638. Representing the first Lord Baltimore, Cecil Calvert, Lewger built a manor house that was both a residence for himself and a gathering place for leaders of the fledgling colony. It later was used as the residence of a Dutch merchant, the home of a governor, and a succession of inns.

They'll lose their bucolic setting, but the two old cabins at Mount Joy Farm in Ellicott City that some believe to have been slave quarters won't fall to the wrecking ball. Howard County Planning and Zoning Director Joseph W. Rutter Jr. approved a waiver this week that will make it easier for Winchester Homes, the developer of a subdivision at the farm, to preserve the cabins. The waiver will allow the developer to keep the road alongside the cabins a private way, freeing the developer from setback rules that might have forced the cabins' destruction.