Waterfront

Nearly a year after the Inner Harbor's historic carousel was ordered to move over unpaid bills, the city has struck a deal with a new merry-go-round operator. Charm City Carousel Entertainment LLC, of Stevensville, will bring a new carousel to the city's downtown waterfront in the spring, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Thursday. "Baltimore's Inner Harbor draws families from all over the country and the world to experience everything our unique waterfront has to offer," the mayor said in a statement.

Downtown Annapolis' Market House, a historic landmark that has been open only intermittently since 2003, is scheduled to reopen in the spring after being closed this year, according to Mayor Joshua Cohen. "In terms of a specific opening date, it's premature to mark that. Our focus with the Market House is not just to get it open, but to get it done well," Cohen said. The reopening, he said, will begin a "new chapter of the Market House's history. " The 19th-century waterfront building was flooded in 2003 during Tropical Storm Isabel, and since then has faced disputes with renters and political opposition.

The contemporary home overlooking Weems Creek in Annapolis was packed with custom touches, thanks to its former owner, a builder. The two-acre property, at 12 Weems Creek Drive, belonged to a now-retired luxury home builder, who designed and built the four-bedroom, 41/2 -bath house in 1996. The home went on the market in January for $4.9 million and sold in October for $4.4 million. The seller had torn down the original structure, once the summer home of a Baltimore physician and his family.

News that Citigroup is foreclosing on developer Patrick Turner's Westport Waterfront property did not alarm Keisha Allen, the leader of the Westport Neighborhood Association. "To the average person, it looks like everything in Westport is tied up with Pat Turner," Allen said Tuesday. But, she said, "the waterfront is the icing on the cake of development that's happening here. " Financial troubles for Turner's massive mixed-use development along the western shore of the Middle Branch of the Patapsco river have been simmering for months, culminating with Citigroup Global Markets Realty Corp.

Wedding day: Oct. 27, 2012 Her story: Marielle Alexis Newman, 27, grew up in New Rochelle, N.Y. She is a color specialist for Under Armour. Her dad, Howell Newman, works for IBM and her mother, Leona Newman, works for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. His story: Benjamin Allen Schiffman, 26, grew up in East Petersburg, Pa. He is a patent examiner for the U.S. Patent Office. His dad, Jeffrey Schiffman, is the sports director at WSBA, a radio station in York, Pa. His mother, Lynne Morrison, is the executive director of Hands-on House, a children's museum in Lancaster, Pa. Their story: The couple met at University of Delaware, when Benjamin was a freshman and Marielle was a sophomore.

A three-alarm fire damaged a waterfront home in Pasadena Wednesday, officials said. More than 75 firefighters responded to a call for help shortly after 4:30 p.m. in the 8300 block of Beachwood Park Road along the Magothy River, said Lt. Keith Hamilton, an Anne Arundel County fire spokesman. The American Red Cross is assisting two adults and a child who lived in the home, Hamilton said. No one was injured, he said. When firefighters arrived they found heavy smoke and a fire on the second floor of the 2 1/2-story single family home.

A contemporary three-bedroom Colonial on the Annapolis waterfront sold recently for $1.35 million after being on the market for about eight months, according to the home's listing agent. The 3,100-square-foot home at 56 E. Lake Drive in the Bay Ridge neighborhood backs against the sheltered waters of Lake Ogleton, on the edge of the Chesapeake Bay. It was originally listed for $1,795,000. Pat Ogle, who sold the house for the owners, said the home's top selling points were its water views and the second-story deck off the master bedroom that overlooks the half-acre property, including a private pier on the waterfront.

The longtime home of James and Patricia Rouse on the banks of Wilde Lake in Columbia, where the world-known affordable housing advocates danced together to tunes from a stereo next to their living room fireplace, is up for sale. It is the home's first time on the market since the newlyweds purchased it for $95,000 more than 38 years ago. "They would put music on in here and dance. They had this incredible record collection," said Maria Gamper, Patricia Rouse's daughter, as she showed off the modern living area that her mother and stepfather shared for more than two decades.

When Harborplace first opened, it was hailed as one of the crown jewels of Baltimore's renaissance, and millions of visitors from across Maryland and around the country beat a path to its door. On a typical Saturday afternoon, the Light and Pratt street pavilions were beehives of activity, crowded with tourists who came to the Inner Harbor to eat, shop and gawk. More than 30 years later, Harborplace is still viable and still commercially successful, although not necessarily what it once was. There are any number of reasons for this, from competition elsewhere to the natural evolution of any attraction - but surely one big problem involved its owners and the lack of sufficient investment in the properties as ownership transferred from Rouse Co. to Chicago-based General Growth Properties, which subsequently landed in bankruptcy.