Spa Creek

Maryland Natural Resources Police are investigating the death of a man whose body was found in Spa Creek Saturday afternoon. The man was identified as Timothy Patrick Ellis, 55, of Annapolis, Sgt. Art Windemuth said Sunday. Police responded about 2:20 p.m. after a call to Anne Arundel County 911 that reported a body floating in the creek near the 300 block of Burnside St. in Annapolis, Windemuth said. The body has been taken to the chief medical examiner for an autopsy.

The best thing about O'Leary's Seafood Restaurant is how tricky it is to describe. Not so many years back, I'd have called O'Leary's eclectic, which became a byword for both a type of menu and the kind of place that served it. Offering a relaxed version of fine dining, the eclectic restaurant flourished in the 1990s, when serving staffs started wearing black T-shirts and sheets of paper were placed over the tablecloth. Eclectic lives on at O'Leary's, which is housed in a bright blue cottage-like building, a stone's throw from Spa Creek in Annapolis.

The State Highway Administration is inspecting the Spa Creek Bridge in downtown Annapolis this week and will close single lanes between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. tomorrow and Tuesday. The Spa Creek Bridge was built in 1946. The two-lane bridge connects downtown Annapolis and Eastport; the draw span is raised an average of 3,800 times each year. Hardesty & Hanover, LLP of Annapolis is conducting the routine inspection. Democrats plan rally Friday Annapolis-area Democrats gearing up for the Feb. 12 Maryland primary will hold a "Get Out The Vote Rally and Party," sponsored by the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Democratic central committees, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday at Sarles Boatyard, 800 Boucher Ave. in Eastport.

It came down to the final round of the world's longest tug-of-war over water, but the city of Annapolis delivered Saturday on its vow to save face against rival Eastport and win the annual match billed as the "Slaughter Across the Water. " As supporters screamed, "Tug! Tug! Tug!" 33 men and women strained to pull a thick rope and hold their ground as if their lives - not just bragging rights - depended on it. From the Annapolis side of Spa Creek, they faced off against the Eastport team, barely visible more than 1,600 feet away on the opposite shore.

Water quality in the Spa Creek headwaters has improved to normal and the advisory against swimming has been lifted, the Anne Arundel County Department of Health announced yesterday.The advisory was issued for the headwaters and areas downstream from the Truxtun Heights Park boat ramp after a sewage spill July 9.

A century ago, Anne Arundel's county commissioners approved for service a new steel and wood bridge over Spa Creek, connecting downtown Annapolis and Eastport. The Sun reported on April 10, 1907, that the cost was $53,000. The current bridge replaced the structure in 1947. Times had changed, driving the price tag up to $667,000 for the arching reinforced concrete and steel bridge, designed for foot, auto and truck traffic. Two years ago, a $1 million state-funded sandblasting, lead-removal and paint job transformed the bridge, which spans the water in shades of eggplant and mauve.

Annapolis Federal Savings Bank took possession of the financially troubled Spa Creek Yacht Club Monday, after a public foreclosure auction in which the bank offered the sole bid.The bank, which holds the mortgage on the Eastport marina, bid $700,000 for the property, which includes 56 boat slips, a clubhouse, a pool house and a pool.Developer Dennis C. Blaeuer had listed more than $7 million in debts on Spa Creek and another marina, White Rocks Yacht Club in Pasadena, when he declared bankruptcy in two separate filings in September.

The bankrupt owner of marinas in Pasadena and Annapolis is negotiating to sell both properties as part of a plan to repay more than $7 million in debts.During a meeting yesterday at the U.S. Trustee's office in Baltimore, marina owner Dennis C. Blaeuer confused both creditors and their attorneys with a tangled web of partnerships and corporations he created to run White Rocks Yacht Club in Pasadena and Spa Creek Yacht Club in Eastport.The developer, who filed for protection from creditors last month in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, said he has offers for Spa Creek, a 50-slip marina on Burnside Street, and White Rocks, a 400-slip yacht club on Rock Creek.

Two Annapolis residents boating in Spa Creek yesterday discovered the body of a woman floating in the water and anchored by a large rock, Annapolis police said.The state medical examiner had not determined a cause of death late yesterday, but police said the woman suffered "obvious signs of trauma to the body" and that it was "very possible" she was dead when her body was dumped into the water, Lt. Stanley Malm said.The boaters found the fully clothed body about 10:45 a.m. near the end of a fishing and crabbing pier in Truxtun Heights Park, Malm said.

THIS YEAR marks the 130th anniversary of the opening of the first Eastport bridge. Appropriately, the span across Spa Creek has been closed for repairs -- to give Annapolitans a glimpse of how difficult it was to get from one shore to the other in Maryland's capital long ago.Not that civic distinctions ended with the building of the bridge, mind you. "If you were an Annapolitan, you didn't go over to Eastport," an old-timer told local chronicler Mame Warren....

The Annapolis waterfront house with a $1.77 million price tag, the second-most-expensive property sold in the Baltimore region in September, was under contract after just one week. The house at 131 Spa View Ave., in the state capital's Murray Hill neighborhood, has a traditional exterior and contemporary interior and a deck, patio and private pier that overlooks Spa Creek. The five-bedroom, four-bath house went on the market in move-in condition, said Day Weitzman, the listing agent.

John B. "Jack" Owens, who had been a principal in the family-owned Owens Yacht Co., the legendary Annapolis boat builder, and later established a real estate firm, died Saturday of heart failure at his Naples, Fla., home. He was 96. Mr. Owens was born in Detroit, where his father was a vice president of Westinghouse Electric Corp. and his mother was a homemaker. After his wife's death in 1918, the elder Mr. Owens moved his children to Spa Creek in Eastport, Annapolis, so relatives could help him raise his daughter and four sons.

Maryland Natural Resources Police are investigating the death of a man whose body was found in Spa Creek Saturday afternoon. The man was identified as Timothy Patrick Ellis, 55, of Annapolis, Sgt. Art Windemuth said Sunday. Police responded about 2:20 p.m. after a call to Anne Arundel County 911 that reported a body floating in the creek near the 300 block of Burnside St. in Annapolis, Windemuth said. The body has been taken to the chief medical examiner for an autopsy.

A waterfront lot is as hard to come by in downtown Annapolis as a parking space during tourist season. But patience can pay off. Interior designer Gay Henriksen has plenty of patience. For a decade, she and her husband and two youngest daughters lived in the Murray Hill section of downtown, right behind a decaying house that sat on three lots, cheek by jowl to Spa Creek. Henriksen, owner of GH Interiors, kept an eye on the property, envisioning the opportunity for a design project of a lifetime.

One thing's for sure, neither Jeff Holland nor any of the conspirators who were on hand a decade ago - plotting the mock battle for independence that defines the Maritime Republic of Eastport - is ever going to reveal the whereabouts of the 1,800-foot strand of rope that has become the symbol for tongue-in-cheek competition between downtown Annapolis and its breakaway republic.

Church, conservancy to aid Spa Creek The Spa Creek Conservancy and Heritage Baptist Church have joined forces to improve the health of the headwaters of the creek in Annapolis. The two organizations will build seven rain gardens and two planters, and will plant 25 trees to filter stormwater runoff from Forest Drive, near the creek's origin. The public is invited to help plant the more than 1,300 native plants on June 14. The initiative, which includes more than $100,000 in materials and labor on church property, is being funded by a grant awarded to the conservancy by the Chesapeake Bay Trust.

THERE'S MORE THAN a saltwater tang in the air of Eastport these days. Visit the bay-front community, and you'll pick up the unmistakable scent of secession -- a whiff of eau de revolution.Eastport, annexed by Annapolis in 1951, will "secede" from the state on Jan. 25 to protest a planned three-week closure of the bridge over Spa Creek.Hours after the bridge is closed for repairs, a group of Eastport residents will declare the Maritime Republic of Eastport free of the bridge-closing tyranny of Annapolis and the State Highway Administration.

The State Highway Administration is inspecting the Spa Creek Bridge in downtown Annapolis this week and will close single lanes between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. tomorrow and Tuesday. The Spa Creek Bridge was built in 1946. The two-lane bridge connects downtown Annapolis and Eastport; the draw span is raised an average of 3,800 times each year. Hardesty & Hanover, LLP of Annapolis is conducting the routine inspection. Democrats plan rally Friday Annapolis-area Democrats gearing up for the Feb. 12 Maryland primary will hold a "Get Out The Vote Rally and Party," sponsored by the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Democratic central committees, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday at Sarles Boatyard, 800 Boucher Ave. in Eastport.

From this home in a residential oasis in downtown Annapolis, every window offers a view - whether a slice of the city and its waterfront, or a peek at a serene garden. "You can see the capitol, the steeples, the cityscape, and it's so open with the big windows," said Gary Richardson who, with his wife, Mary, owns the house overlooking Spa Creek. Eleven-foot ceilings on the first and second floors add to a sense of openness in the house, which is a short walk from the business district, but seems a world apart from its daytime bustle and nightlife.