The former Trip’s Place nightspot in Station North will reopen as a lounge and entertainment venue called Laverne’s, part of a larger arts and culture hub planned for the 1800 block of North Charles Street.
Baltimore’s liquor board on Thursday voted 3 to 0 to approve an application to transfer a Class ‘BD7’ Beer, Wine & Liquor License to a group that plans to open Laverne’s where Trip’s Place used to be.
The vote is a sign that new owners are moving ahead with previously-announced plans to reopen the adjoining Trip’s Place and Gatsby’s nightclub buildings, which have been dormant for years, for arts-related uses.
The two venues, which are connected internally, were sold as a package in a public auction in July of 2024 for $609,000. The sale included the former Gatsby’s building at 1817 N. Charles Street, once the headquarters of the Noxzema skin cream company, and the former Trip’s Place building at 1813 N. Charles St.
The auctioneer was A. J. Billig. The seller was the Estate of Anthony Dwight Triplin, Sr., the former club owner, who died in 2014 at age 64. The buyer was 1817 Arts LLC, a collection of artists and engineers that includes Baltimore residents Catherine Borg, Megan Elcrat and Amrita “Ami” Kaur Dang.
Part of Baltimore’s Station North Arts District, the two properties have housed a series of nightclubs over the years, including Gatsby’s, Trip’s Place and Club Choices. In recent years, they were operated together as Trip’s Place & Gatsby’s, “The Adult Entertainment and Party Experience.” The assemblage consists of three- and four-story brick and stucco buildings, with multiple entrances that can accommodate more than one operation.
The sale included an active liquor license available for transfer, and that was the subject of the liquor board hearing on Thursday. According to an application on file with the liquor board, the proposed lounge will be on the first, second, mezzanine and basement levels of the Trip’s Place building at 1813 N. Charles St. The applicants are Borg; Elcrat and Dang, organized as 1813 Sips LLC.
The application lists Dang as the manager of the proposed lounge. It states that Dang, Borg and Elcrat will each own 25 percent of the stock in 1813 Sips LLC and the remaining 25 percent of the stock will be owned by Christopher Franz of Manhattan Beach, California.
Since the auction in 2024, the buyers have been working to renovate and reopen the two buildings; this past summer they put on a new roof. In addition to Laverne’s, they plan to fill remaining spaces with “artistic and cultural” uses that fit in with and take advantage of the properties’ prime location and visibility in the Station North Arts District, such as an art gallery, a casual food spot and other flexible spaces. Present Company, headed by Elcrat, is the project architect.
“What really drew us to the project was this rich cultural heritage,” Elcrat said in a “Five Minute History” video released this week by Baltimore Heritage. “We’re very excited to preserve spaces where people can dance, where people can feel joy, where people can come together over good food, over space where they can create, and we’re really excited to invest our time and energy into bringing some of that back to this complex.”
In June, the property was in the spotlight when artist Tony Shore unveiled a large work of art entitled “Aurora” on the Charles Street façade of the Gatsby’s building. Shore’s creation was funded as part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ $1 million Inviting Light initiative to bring five works of public art to Station North for at least a year.
During the Inviting Light event on June 14, which coincided with the springtime Charles Street Promenade street closure, the liquor license applicants had a pop-up event that offered a preview of Laverne’s. One of the liquor license applicants, Borg, also has filed an application with Baltimore’s zoning board to offer live entertainment as a conditional use at 1813 N. Charles St. The zoning board was originally scheduled to consider the request on Oct. 21 but the item was postponed and a new hearing date has not been announced.
The venture has the backing of the Charles North Community Association (CNCA).
“We have met the representatives of this new bar, restaurant and arts venue, and we are happy to welcome them to our neighborhood,” CNCA Co-President Colleen Stanley wrote in a letter to the liquor board. “We fully support their efforts on Charles Street…We have also heard their plans related to live entertainment, and we are fully in support of their program.”
Tony Shore’s art work will be featured on a free walking tour of Inviting Light sites on Friday, Oct. 10, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The tour will start at the Showroom Bar on the first level of Motor House, 120 W. North Ave.
