Baltimore Rowhouse by Charles Belfoure

Author:Charles Belfoure
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Published: 1999-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

The 20 percent overall profit from the development thus came entirely from the sale of the ground rents; otherwise, the project would have incurred a 23 percent loss. These statistics support the theory that Baltimore rowhouse builders were able to offer a more attractive product and more design features at a lower asking price than in other cities precisely because the builders were able to rely on the profits from the sales of ground rents—not from the development and sales of houses.

Gallagher’s Park Side houses also represent the final stylistic evolution for the modest, two-story rowhouse in the artistic period. Built of brown, iron-spot brick, with white sheet metal cornices and white marble trim, they have both Renaissance and neocolonial detailing, motifs first used by architects on high-style rows in the early 1890s. Each house has a strictly classical flat-headed window capped with a striking white marble lintel. The stained-glass panel features simple geometrical forms (especially diamonds) and pale color schemes rather than the naturalistic and more richly colored designs of the picturesque style. Neocolonial-inspired white woodwork dominates the parlor, but “artistic” wallpaper and dark-stained mantels and overmantels hold sway in the dining room. The house extends back the full width of the lot and the stairs are located in a windowless center room, which is lit by electric lights.

At Park Side Gallagher initially followed the traditional practice of building much smaller houses along the narrow alley street running through the center of the block, which is where Wesolowski’s house was located. Gallagher, like other developers, carefully had gauged the marketplace. As a savvy businessman, he was adapt at fitting the product to various economic levels of potential buyers. Since the basic Baltimore block was laid out with a narrower alley street running through the middle (either in a north-south or east-west direction), Gallagher had six block faces on which to build per block. On these he developed four differently priced categories of houses. Those along the street facing the park had the widest lots, the highest ground rents, and were the most elaborate. The streets running back on either side from the primary street became the secondary block faces; on these the lots were slightly less wide, carried lower ground rents, and the houses had fewer expensive finish details and interior fittings. A third price category of house was built on the street running across the bottom of the block. The least expensive houses of all—the kind of house that Wesolowski bought—were on the narrow, mid-block alleys.

The extent of the marble work and stained glass are the most obvious exterior features that distinguish Gallagher’s classes of houses. The best and most expensive houses had a full marble basement and steps, marble lintels and sills, a wide plate-glass first-story window with stained glass and a stained-glass door transom. (A few also had second-floor bay windows.) The second-best houses had marble sills and steps but only a stringer course at basement level and segmental brick arches over the windows; there were still stained-glass transoms.

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