Laurence Hall Fowler continued

Fowler married Mary Colt Josephs in 1926. At the same time as their marriage, Fowler finally built a house for himself and his bride at 10 West Highfield Road. If any of the Fowler designs can be named “eclectic”. It is this one, the most Arts and Crafts of any of Fowler’s commissions. In 1925 Fowler designed what has been described as his most personal statement—his own residence on Highfield Road. Scholar Egon Verheyen stated it best: Fowler “was responding only to himself, not to any client, no matter how close he felt to him or her. The simplicity of the outside hides the elegance of the interior. The house is turned away from the street and opened to a small wooded area with a little brook running at the bottom of the hill.  From there, Fowler had in front of him a collection of his houses, three early ones built on Oak Place, and from 1928 onward, also the one designed for Virgil Hillyer.”

Sadly, numerous works by Fowler in Tuscany-Canterbury have been demolished over the years; extremely desirable land and economic opportunities have proven a powerful and destructive combination. In 2002, Eileen Higham, a team of residents, Preservation Maryland, and the Maryland Historical Trust secured Tuscany-Canterbury to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2008, a battle was fought and won to save Fowler’s historic Castalia from demolition. A petition created by Tuscany-Canterbury residents and TCNA was supported by the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP), leading to landmark status by the City. Challenges to Fowler’s legacy via urbanization will no doubt resurface in the future, and Tuscany-Canterbury must protect the priceless treasures of the renowned architect for future generations to come. It is our responsibility, and it is what Fowler would have wanted.

Fowler used the Shingle Style architecture that was developed in the 1880s along the American coast. It is defined by wood-shingled walls, complex rooflines, and expansive porches.

A prominent classically trained Baltimore architect, masterfully adapted this relaxed aesthetic alongside Colonial Revival and Mediterranean styles to suit the city’s expanding neighborhoods.

Fowler’s residential work has been called “eclectic,” citing the fact that he did not produce just one style of dwelling and that his designs did not “evolve” over time. Be that as it may, Fowler’s designs were suited to the settings in which they were placed, both in style and in material.

At Oak Place however, he employed three distinct styles in keeping with the growing neighborhoods of Tuscany-Canterbury, Roland Park, and Guilford: a sizeable Colonial revival dwelling for the Misses Fowler, a Mediterranean villa for William Bullock Clark, and a stucco-clad, almost plantation style home for John Howland. All three are within sight of one another and, while complimentary, are not the same.

Although Fowler closed his office in 1945, he continued his work with the architectural life of Baltimore through serving on the Building Committee at the Johns Hopkins University, and through the Maryland Historical Society, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Baltimore chapter of AIA.

He was one of the city’s early voices for historic preservation: not only did he document the demolition of significant structures in the post-fire era rebuilding, but he salvaged elements from condemned buildings (mantels, doorways, and moldings in particular) to be reused in new construction or renovations.

Fowler lived into the era in which Modernism gradually replaced the Beaux Arts sensibilities that formed the underlying basis of his own designs. He died In Baltimore on June 12, 1971, after several years of failing health. He was 3 months shy of his 95^th birthday.