More change coming to historic Elkridge neighborhood

One thing has always been clear to the residents of Lawyers Hill, a historic neighborhood perched along a dramatic ridge of land where the state's tidewater basin leaps 300 feet to the Piedmont Plateau and sweeping views of the Patapsco River Valley are common.

The world will change around them, even if they resist.

The small Elkridge neighborhood, located at Interstate 95 just south of the Patapsco River, began in the 1840s as a summer retreat for prominent Baltimore families escaping the bustle of the city, who built ornate homes veiled by acres of woods.

Then came the Civil War, which created tension among neighbors with opposing sympathies and planted a garrison of Union troops on the hill to guard the Thomas Viaduct below.

A century later, in the 1960s and 1970s, Interstates 95 and 895 came slicing through, cornering the small community against Washington Boulevard. More recent decades have brought new homes ever closer to its edges.

Now, change is again occurring in the district, which was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993, change that has residents concerned about increased traffic, diminished forests and a loss of community character.

Two developers are working on projects to build a total of 91 single-family homes on 76 acres off Lawyers Hill Road that were previously the wooded grounds of a small scattering of historic properties. Trees have already been cleared, hills have been leveled, and a few new homes have already risen. At least one historic building has been demolished.

"Whatever I feel, people have to have a place to live, and I know that," said Pamela Dillon, who has lived for 26 years in the historic 1914 "Red Hill House," on nearby Old Lawyers Hill Road. "But ticky-tacky on top of pristine beauty is not it."

Some preservationists have praised one of the developers, Alan Meyer, whose family since 1942 has owned one of the properties being developed – the historic Claremont estate and its surrounding acreage – and who incorporated renovations to the 1858 home into his development plans.

Still, that praise is diminished by the fact that the double-gabled, wide-porched, Italianate-style home, once the shaded secret of a sprawling property, now sits stark atop a cleared field of dirt, residents said.

Meyer's 43-acre development of 48 homes, being built around the Claremont estate by Ryan Homes and called Claremont Overlook, is already in progress, with three new homes and the neighborhood's street-level infrastructure already in place. The homes are being sold starting at $440,000, Meyer said.

The Claremont estate will undergo restorations before being put on the market as well, Meyer said.

Construction of the second, adjacent development of 43 homes, which will be built on 33 acres by Trinity Homes and is dubbed Cypress Springs, will likely begin at the start of next year, said Michael Pfau, Trinity's president.

The only major historic property on Pfau's property, the 1906 Old Grace Church Rectory, was destroyed by arson years ago, he said. But another collapsed house, a small barn and a dilapidated log cabin were demolished for safety reasons, he said.

The cabin, though not as distinguished as the burned rectory, was listed as "contributing" to the district's historic nature on the 1993 national registry form.

Pricing for the new 3,000-square-feet homes planned for the development will be "market driven" and determined nearer to their completion, Pfau said.

The two new neighborhoods are both expected to be completed within the next three years, and will share one entrance on a hilly and curved section of Lawyers Hill Road, just up the hill from where Levering Avenue passes under the Thomas Viaduct.

Cyclists worried

The location of the entrance is a key concern for neighbors and local bicyclists.

"I don't think you'll find anyone here who's really happy about it," said Bruce Voris, of Old Lawyers Hill Road. "The traffic is going to be bad, and we expect it is going to get worse."

Jack Guarneri, president of Bicycling Advocates of Howard County, said while Lawyers Hill Road is far from the group's top concern in the county, the likely traffic increase there will complicate its use as a biking route.

"Is it going to affect it? Yeah, it will, especially on the downhill," Guarneri said. "These guys are out there in the dark, early mornings in the winter, so they want to make sure there's some provision made on the road for bicyclists."

Mike West, of Ellicott City, said he rides Lawyers Hill Road at least twice a week, all year long, with a group of five to 15 others. Most of the time, his group travels up the hill, but he routinely sees other bicyclists coming down the hill at 20 to 30 miles per hour, and he is concerned about cars making a left out of the new development and into the path of the bicyclists, he said.

Aggressive drivers already prevent him from biking elsewhere in the county, West said, and the thought of roads like Lawyers Hill becoming crowded as well isn't a pleasant one..

"It gets hard when the nooks and crannies start filling in," he said. "Where do you go?"

Tim Keane, head of land acquisition and development for Trinity, said all new developments require a traffic study, and that he approached the one for the Lawyers Hill entrance with a simple question in mind: "If a school bus of young children were coming out of there and turning left, would they be able to see and would somebody else be able to see them."

The answer at the new entrance is "yes," he said, as it has "good sight distance."

Motorists and bicyclists alike should be safe, though there is "some onus on the cyclists themselves, in terms of flagging or something like that," he said.

Timing 'very good'

Both developments have been years in the making, and would likely have come to fruition already were it not for the housing slump, the developers said. But now, many say, the market is ready..

"I think the timing on when these houses will be coming on the market is probably very good," said John Kortecamp, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Maryland. "There's a tremendous amount of pent-up demand in the marketplace, arguably four years of stunted demand."

Not that the developers didn't have other challenges to overcome.

Because the properties fall within the national historic district, Meyer and Pfau had to work directly with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Maryland Historical Trust to ensure their projects met the standards set forth under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. As part of that process, both hired local historic preservationist Lisa Wingate to assess the impact their developments would have on the surrounding historic properties. They also had to follow standards for building on a designated "scenic roadway," which Lawyers Hill Road is.

What they didn't have to do, however, is meet the extensive design and aesthetic standards for new construction in the area set out by the county's Historic District Commission in 1995. That's because the properties in question, while part of the national historic district established in 1993, are not part of the county's own historic district, which was established with different parameters in 1994 and which previous owners of the properties being developed, including Meyer's uncle, opted out of.

While the county did have some input with the developments — it successfully asked Meyer to give up one additional plot next to the Claremont estate in order to preserve a bit more of the home's scenic integrity, for example — it could not hold the developments to the same standards it would have were they part of the historic district.

'Paradise lost'

While many of the new homes will sit on flatter land closer to Washington Boulevard than the district's historic properties, residents remain concerned about the impact on their community..

"There's a history all along the Patapsco River Valley, and we're part of that history," said Cathy Hudson, a 27-year resident of Old Lawyers Hill Road and a local preservationist who recently purchased nine acres adjacent to the Cypress Springs development to prevent any potential expansion.

"I think those sorts of areas are essential in Howard County and throughout the United States, and as we grow out, I think they will become increasingly important," she said.

Dillon, 71, said before spring brought leaves to the many trees on her property, she could look out her back window — which previously framed nothing but lush vegetation — and see the cleared brown land of Claremont Overlook. The new view is an encroachment on the natural beauty that inspired her to move into the neighborhood so long ago, she said.

"Before this, it really was like living in the middle of nowhere," Dillon said. "With each development, it's like paradise lost, paradise lost, paradise lost."

The developers note that much of the property will remain wooded.

According to Keane, the site's existing "residential-environmental" zoning required that 50 percent of the property remain wooded, and Trinity plans to keep 60 percent wooded..

"For the most part, we are not taking down the woods," he said. "Some tree-hugger might say that's not exactly true, and that's correct, it's not exactly true. But for the most part, it is true."

Trinity is also planting hundreds of new trees, and thousands of plants in total, as part of "bio-retention" plans, Keane said.

The Claremont development is also zoned "residential-environmental," and has the same 50-percent requirement.

"We're not out to completely destroy the character of the neighborhood," said Meyer, who remembers playing on Claremont's grounds as a child, when his grandparents lived there.

"I think that kind of shaped my approach to respecting the property and the house," he said. One thing has always been clear to the residents of Lawyers Hill, a historic neighborhood perched along a dramatic ridge of land where the state's tidewater basin leaps 300 feet to the Piedmont Plateau and sweeping views of the Patapsco River Valley are common.