Hot House: 1023 Winding Way, Poplar Hill, Baltimore, 21210.
Four bedrooms, five and a half baths. Tudor influences throughout. Fireplaces and original wood paneling. Off-street parking and garages. Built in 1928. Asking price: $1,000,000
Hot House: This English cottage could just as easily be in the Cotswolds as in Baltimore. Telltale signs suggest that it’s a Palmer & Lamdin design, including the chimneys with turned-brick details, the steel casement windows, the multi-layered façade, and the mix of stone and brick. The house is filled with wonderful features including several fireplaces, beautiful wood-paneled rooms, Tudor-arched doorways, a sweeping staircase, and the original windows.
What: Winding Way is an interesting combination of charming stone houses — one even has a turret — and mid-century modern architecture. This Tudor-style house fits right into the mix. The details really showcase 1920’s craftsmanship such as wood-paneled rooms with beamed ceilings, big fireplaces, leaded glass windows, and Tudor doorways, all with what looks like the original hardwood floors.
The façade of this house is amazing, and the more you look at it, the more you see. The understated front door has a delightful carving on its lintel. The half-timbers that mark it as Tudor-style surround a variety of brickwork bonds, including two types of herringbone. The eye travels up to the diamond-stack chimneys, a signature of a good brick mason. On the façade to the right sits a small doorway, unobtrusively tucked away in what would have been an unused corner, but it leads directly into the kitchen.
The kitchen has been updated with commercial grade sinks -– three of them -– refrigerator and stove. It has a ton of storage space, plus a small pantry/wet-bar off to the side. Luckily, the listing has floor plans for the house, because the realtor has provided very few details at all.
The house has four bedrooms and five-and-a-half baths. The master bedroom has a double-height beamed ceiling with a fireplace, plus three closets and an attached large bathroom. Light comes in from three sides and looks bright and airy. The other bedrooms reflect the quirky roofline of the house, with sloped ceilings.
One of the other attractions of the house is its huge finished basement with what is now a billiards room, opening out onto a loggia with a stone terrace. It would be a perfect place to have your grill set up and is shaded by the huge old-growth trees. There is not much of a back yard, as it drops off steeply to Bellemore Road.
Where: This house is on Winding Way in what is termed North Roland Park or Poplar Hill, an area nestled between Roland Avenue and Falls Road to the east and west, Lake Avenue and Northern Parkway to the north and south. It’s pretty secluded, but only five minutes to Roland Park independent schools, Roland Park Elementary Middle as well as the Mt. Washington Whole Foods, Eddie’s Market, and two Starbucks.
Final Appraisal: If you have always imagined living in a quaint English cottage, this is the place for you. The original details are irreplaceable and unique (and the new owner should consider themselves a steward of this house and leave the details alone). It’s not too big and not too small, and it’s convenient to everything. The listing is here.
