Bolton Hill

So after a busy day on Wednesday, Craig and I went down into the Bolton Hill neighborhood of Baltimore to attend the Baltimore Heritage Awards Ceremony. I have a couple of friends who work with this organization and I have taken a few tours coordinated by my friend, Marsha, so I decided it was time to become a member. The organization is sort of like a British National Trust for Baltimore. The event included a walking tour of five properties in the Bolton Hill environs and it was right up my alley, of course.

The first stop was the Brown Memorial Prebyterian Church. What an amazing surprise inside: windows by Tiffany! They were stunning. 

Next we toured actual homes. One cottage tucked onto a corner was owned by an elderly cat lady whose house smelled like she was a cat lady. There was no air conditioning in the house either which just added to the mustiness. She had an amazing collection of artifacts from her travels and fresh apricots and lemonade in her garden which did make up for the odor.

Another house was once a church and then a synagogue and then a home.

As we entered, Craig and I had a bit of deja vu in that we felt like we had been there before. We had not, but we stayed in a renovated church, the Vennel Kirk, in South Queensferry outside of Edinburgh whose floor plans were eerily similar on the first floor.

The owner of another property had great taste in tile so I took a couple of photos for reminders for future use.

Fireplace insert

I have the perfect tiles for this that I got from an auction.

And then we sort of wandered around a bit.

I should also note that Bolton Hill has a Blue Plaque program which is based on the one in London. Many prominent Baltimore residents have once lived in Bolton Hill including

who once lived next door to one of the properties we got to see. This was especially noteworthy as I had just finished reading The Paris Wife by Paula McClain about Hemingway's life with his first wife, Hadley Richardson, and F. Scott Fitzgerald is portrayed off and on in this book. He and Zelda were both insane.

We then headed to the Meyerhoff House which is part of the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and had a lovely reception and dinner. We sat with an older gay couple who were a treat to converse with for a few hours. We had tons of stuff in common. I just love serendipity.