By Fred Rasmussen Sun Staff

May 25, 1997
When people who live here think of Baltimore, they naturally think of Mount Vernon Place and the Washington Monument.

It is that vista, that wonderful 19th-century compilation of houses and institutions, that greets the eye and piques the interest of the visitor and city dweller alike.

Its image adorns postcards and visitors record their visits to Baltimore by posing their families in the shadow of the Washington Monument.

Charles Street's northern advance is bisected by architect Robert Mills' elegant monument to George Washington. The first monument erected to Washington after the Revolution, it was begun in 1815 and completed in 1829 when sculptor Enrico Causici's statue was placed atop the finished shaft.

While not Baltimore's geographic center it certainly remains the city's emotional and intellectual heart.

In many ways it is as symbolic of who we are as a city as Beacon Hill is to Boston, Rittenhouse Square to Philadelphia or Gramercy Park to New York City.

It is the cultural and intellectual repository of such major institutions as the Peabody Institute, the Walters Art Gallery, the Baltimore School for the Arts, the Maryland Historical Society and the nearby University of Baltimore.

There is an abundance of churches, including Saint Ignatius Roman Catholic Church, Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church, Emmanuel Episcopal Church, First Presbyterian Church and Grace and Saint Peter's Episcopal Church to handle the neighborhood's spiritual needs.

During the day, Baltimoreans who live there or work nearby spend their lunch hours shopping in its quaint stores or dining in its cafes and coffee shops.

While members of the newly restored Maryland Club gather in their clubhouse at Charles and Eager streets, others meet at the Brewer's Art, Hippo or Central Station.

Exotic coffees are sipped in quantity by trendy thirtysomethings at Donna's or the City Cafe.

Origin

While not shedding its outward 19th-century appearance or formality, the area remains an upbeat contemporary destination day or night.

It was John Eager Howard, the Revolutionary War hero, who can probably be credited with starting it all.

Living at Belvidere, his estate, he donated the land for the building of the Washington Monument and later his heirs turned into developers and sold lots to prominent citizens who built elegant townhouses there.

The first house to go up was Charles Howard's in 1829 on what is now the site of the present day Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church. He was the son-in-law of Francis Scott Key, who died in the house in 1843.

By the 1850s, the neighborhood had become fashionable and later home to such notables as A. S. Abell, Henry Barton Jacobs, Robert Garrett, Enoch Pratt, William and Henry Walters and Theodore Marburg, among others.

And to its famous drawing rooms came the celebrities and artists of the day. Some were merely visitors while others were Baltimoreans who preferred its quiet elegance.

The future king of England, Edward VII, dined in 1850 at 1 W. Mount Vernon Place, today the Thomas-Jencks-Gladding-Hackerman House which now houses the Walters' Asian art collection.

His grandson, the Duke of Windsor and his wife, who had been simply Wallis Warfield Simpson in her Baltimore days, spent several nights there years later in the Mount Vernon Club, where the duke complained about the antique plumbing.