My husband and I recently spent four days at the beach. Besides being thrilled to be there in September without a nor'easter or hurricane, we were struck by how many old houses have been demolished and replaced by supersized homes.
Many new houses are built almost to the edge of property lines. They are huge. There's plenty of space inside but little breathing room outdoors, from the porch of one house to the porch of the next or from yard to yard. There's little breathing room from second-floor bedrooms of one house to second-floor bedrooms of the next.
I go to the beach for breathing room, to relax and unwind from the congestion of busy city life. Luckily, in September so many people have left the beach that it feels wide open. Restaurants are not crowded. Bike riding is easy. Finding a spot to sit on the beach or park a car is also easy. No one is in the gigantic house next door.
Although I am always sad to leave a beach, this year I was happy to return to Roland Park. I live in Plat 2, the second plat developed, and the first developed with the help of Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. Plat 2 is characterized by low density (except for heavy truck and car traffic on Cold Spring Lane), deep setbacks from the street to the houses, curved streets and large lots. Even if the traffic of nearby Roland Avenue and Cold Spring is noisy, we are fortunate to have plenty of breathing room and privacy.
In Plat 2 (and Plat 3, too) steep hills and ridges foster names like Hillside Road and Ridgewood Road. These slopes create more distance between the houses and the street; they further the breathing space. Many houses have long flights of stairs from the street to the front yards, often with another flight from the front lawn to the house. In many cases, houses on one side of the street sit higher than houses on the other. Even on the same side of the street, houses often sit at different levels, so windows from one house do not align with windows next door. Viewing is rarely possible from living room to living room. If there are front porches (and few houses in Plat 2 have them), they are staggered. Eavesdropping is impossible.
Green space abounds throughout Roland Park. Lots are large. Hundreds of mature shade trees exist. Neighbors, who take their role seriously as stewards of both the land and the historic "garden suburb," have planted more. A new concept, this garden suburb was built at the turn of the 20th century when downtown dwellers were exposed to open sewers. The idea was to build a community with access to city businesses, but with the benefit of "a therapeutic connection between man and nature."
Public green space abounds, too, particularly along University Parkway and Stony Run. Some streets like Englewood and Edgevale have parks behind the houses. Other large courtyards, like Roland Court and Merryman Court, create pocket parks. A tree-filled median provides a green spine, where the trolley used to run, up the well-planned and wide central boulevard created by University Parkway, then Roland Avenue.
Sidewalks are surrounded by trees and grass, so is the network of footpaths first installed (particularly on the steep west side of Roland Park) to connect residents to commuter trains on Falls Road and Stony Run and to the Roland Avenue trolley. Even the lanes, built to keep commercial delivery to the rear of homes, are bordered by green backyards. The one commercial area designed for Roland Park, the Tudor shopping center, has trees around it and a privet hedge in front. To keep the boulevard green, privet hedges were planted in all residential front yards on Roland Avenue. Privet even screened the trolley tracks.
The green space at the Baltimore Country Club, founded as a neighborhood club to draw homebuyers out from downtown, included one of the country's early golf courses. With tennis equally fashionable, tennis courts, including grass courts, were built. For generations, a long green hill was open for neighborhood sledding and ball playing.
Because of that early golf course, Roland Park could be considered one of the first golf course communities in America. In the1960s, with much of the club's membership moving out to Baltimore County, part of the club land was sold to the Rouse Co. and part became the playing fields at the Poly-Western High School complex. In Timonium, the club built swimming pools, tennis courts and outstanding golf courses, but it maintained its historic, in-town facility. Only in recent years were the tennis courts, including some that were grass, closed.
Although my husband and I are sometimes tempted to join the ranks of "downsizers" and find a lower-maintenance, quieter house, for now we will stay put and enjoy both green space and breathing room.