4100 N Charles Street, Winthrop House

Jeremiah Merryman in 1881 purchased land from Martha Merryman and purchased land and built a magnificent residence. Mallory was a well-known businessman whose company manufactured equipment for trains.  George A. Frederick designed “the elegant and capacious dwelling” as described in the Maryland Journal of September 1883: The fate of Mallory’s magnificent mansion in the early part of the century is unclear.  The site was a vacant, weed-grown lot for many decades.

The Winthrop House condominiums grew out efforts of the Tuscany-Canterbury and Guilford effort to prevent the building of a motor hotel.

Several years of protests and threats of litigation finally prevailed, bringing the motor hotel plan to a halt in 1962.  Community concern then shifted to a proposal to build a high-rise apartment building on the site.  When zoning was downgraded to permit the high rise, the opposition was so intense that the Tuscany-Canterbury and several individuals entered suit against the mayor and city council of Baltimore for allowing the owners to erect apartment with parking for 152 families. The action was abandoned, and the high-rise was built in 1975, the architect Donald Sickler.

The condominium of brick construction was designed to fit into the scale of the neighborhood.  It represents a victory for the neighborhood association.  Parking spaces were built into the design and included with the purchase of a unit.  The inclusion of underground, or otherwise hidden parking spaces is an admirable aspect of the building.