Veritable Smithsonian

An artist at the museum turns rowhouse into display case

By Marie Gullard | Special to The Sun

February 29, 2008

From the sidewalk in front of Brian Jensen's restored townhouse on 21st Street in midtown Baltimore, a passer-by can see gas chandeliers glowing softly through lace living-room curtains. Steady flames flicker behind cut-glass globes onto the ceiling above.

At the carved oak front door, a wooden door bell knob requires a hearty pull, followed by a swift push back. Although it is 2008, the decided sense of entering a time capsule is felt at the entrance hall, its full impact realized at every turn of the head.

"I'd like to think this house was rescued by me," said the 57-year-old master of the home.

Time travel, movie set, museum exhibition or a collector's dream, Jensen's house is the culmination of a lifelong love of acquiring antiques coupled with the knowledge attained from almost 35 years at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, where he mounts exhibits.

In 1976, Jensen purchased the three-story brick house in the city neighborhood known as Old Goucher, which is between Mount Vernon and Charles Village. Originally built for the prosperous middle class, the houses, along with the neighborhood, had fallen into decline and were selling at modest prices.

Jensen, who lived in Alexandria, Va., was immediately attracted to the home's high ceilings, curved walls, carved staircase and wall niches. Although it had been used as a rooming house, it had never been broken up into apartments. So he bought the circa 1879 property for $8,000.

Jensen used a low-interest, $10,000 loan from the city to replace the roof, plumbing, wiring and heating to bring the house up to code. He also had the exterior brick cleaned and repointed. His restoration of the interior will be on display April 27 during the Old Goucher Home Tour.

Stepping into the 19th-century kitchen in the above-ground basement is a bit like stepping into a museum of Americana. Here, in a 16-foot-by-30-foot space, hundreds of appliances - most in working condition - have found a home. The stove Jensen uses daily is a 1920s Fire King, which keeps company with his GE Deluxe two-door refrigerator, circa 1934.

"The motor was placed on top," Jensen laughed. "This way everyone knew you had an electric refrigerator."

Others on display include a combination coffee maker and toaster called a Perc-O-Toaster, a 1948 dishwasher and a 1930 KitchenAid mixer complete with the original cookbook. These relatively modern conveniences sit among copper pots and pans that hang from the room's original hearth.

Upstairs, on the first floor, Jensen's parlor has a respectable collection of Victrolas and hundreds of 78-rpm records, mostly dance music from the 1930s.

Many of the items in Jensen's house were salvaged from leftover exhibition materials that the Smithsonian couldn't store and had designated as trash. Jensen was glad to take them.

"I had a large house to fill," he remembered of the early days 30 years ago. Now he says he's "had to pull in the reins on collecting."

But that wasn't before he furnished a second-floor Gothic Room, which derives its name from a pair of oak choir stalls and a variety of hanging brass church and mosque lamps.

"This room was inspired by a period room that used to be in the American History Museum - a library, where the walls were filled with stuff collected by a gentleman from all of his grand tours and displayed. It's meant to replicate a gentleman's retreat."

Central to the room is a circa 1927 Wurlitzer pipe organ used in movie theaters - "a one-man band with sound effects" in Jensen's words. In perfect working condition, it was purchased by the previous owner from a theater in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Today, a blower in Jensen's basement provides the wind for the scores of organ pipes installed in a room on the third floor and visible from the ceiling above the instrument. Gongs, whistles, bells and cymbals sit among the pipes and are controlled by the organ's console.

"I love keeping periods alive," Jensen said. "It's an outlet for me, and I've enjoyed working on each room."

Have you found your dream home? Tell us about it. Write to Dream Home, Real Estate Editor, The Sun, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore 21278, or e-mail us at real.estate@baltsun.com. Find our Dream Home archive at baltimoresun.com/dreamhome. Keyword: COLUMN