Manor House

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.

Howard County cleared an important legal obstacle yesterday to building a 300-acre park on the estate of a reclusive woman who used a shotgun to fend off development - but never signed a will to keep it at bay after her 1997 death. In an opinion filed yesterday, the Court of Special Appeals upheld a lower court's decision to throw out a lawsuit that has blocked development of the Blandair Farm estate in the heart of Columbia for more than three years. The property will remain in legal limbo for 45 days while the Blandair Foundation - which opposes development and brought the lawsuit - decides whether to appeal to the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals.

The famously private descendants of Declaration of Independence signer Charles Carroll are scheduled to go to court today over a family land dispute involving a 270-acre parcel near Carroll's ancestral home, Doughoregan Manor. In Howard County Circuit Court, Camilla Carroll and Philip D. Carroll, the children of the manor's current resident, Philip Carroll, are seeking to break off and develop a third of the parcel, which they own jointly with their father's two siblings and the siblings' children.

Thirty years ago Robert and Betty Dinker were a young married couple in their 30s with three small children looking for a new home in Baltimore. Both were Baltimore natives, but had been living in North Carolina for a few years while Dr. Dinker completed his residency in radiology. Then, after serving a year in Vietnam, Dr. Dinker returned to Baltimore, where he had a job offer at Mercy Hospital. The Dinkers wanted to build a new house that would be secluded, have plenty of land and be big enough for the whole family.

ONE OF Howard County's oldest structures, an 18th-century manor house known as Dorsey Hall, will be restored as part of a $3.5 million office center scheduled to open early next year. Howard County Executive James N. Robey joined developers Richard Talkin and Donald Reuwer on Tuesday to break ground for the project, called the Dorsey Hall Manor Executive Offices. The development, at 5100 Dorsey Hall Drive in Columbia, will include the construction of 32,000 square feet of office space in four two-story buildings.

For those of you who're planning a wedding reception - whether for a small group or for hundreds of guests - here's a partial list of some of the area's most popular reception venues. The list will appear occasionally as space permits.Admiral Fell Inn, 888 S. Broadway, 410-522-7380, Ext. 114. Eight-eenth-century hotel in Fells Point. Contact: Marlene Meyer. Reserve as soon as possible. Accommodates 120 seated with dancing, 150 standing with food stations and dancing. Available weekday evenings and weekends all day. Cost: $80 per person and up. In-house catering only.

The Board of Public Works approved spending $2 million more in state funds yesterday to help Queen Anne's County buy 675 acres with three miles of shoreline on the Corsica and Chester rivers.The Conservation Fund -- a national nonprofit land conservation group -- also is providing $2 million in federal grants through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the project. Other state and county funds total $690,000.Ted Moeller, president of the Queen Anne's County commissioners, said the acquisition will nearly double the county's parks and recreation land and will protect a unique site, known as Conquest Farms, from development.

You approach Virginia's oldest plantation along a manicured path that wends its way past a pair of brick storage barns and a matched set of trim, two-story buildings that together form what the guidebooks exalt as a rare Queen Anne-style courtyard, the only surviving example in the United States. Just ahead, rolling lawns and a canopy of pecan, willow oak and English walnut trees frame an imposing, multi-tiered manor house complete with porticoed dormer windows and a welcoming 3]-foot pineapple finial crowning its mansard roof.

Bruno Reich's love affair with his 267-year-old house has pitted him for three years against his neighbors and the powerful Columbia Association.Now, even as an association lawsuit filed against him appears to be heading toward resolution, other legal problems appear to be brewing.The battle is another example of individualism clashing with Columbia's strict architectural covenants, which are regulations designed to protect property values in the planned community.Reich isn't guilty of painting his house fuchsia or mounting a towering satellite dish, but he has been accused of taking years to renovate his house when local architectural guidelines gave him months.

When John Clemson moved from Pennsylvania to eastern Frederick County in the late 1700s, he built a stylish home and founded a local dynasty of sorts.Two centuries later, his namesake town, Clemsonville, remains an active community near Union Bridge. There's Clemsonville Road, Bessie Clemson Road (named for a descendant) and Clemsonville, his 18th-century manor.Today, Clemsonville manor is known as the home of the world's largest wreath. And the Clemsonville Christmas Tree Farm is a popular spot for families that want to cut their own trees.