When Elizabeth Eginton decided to move to Baltimore from New York City, she searched the Internet and found 16 E. Mount Vernon Place for sale, a five-story townhouse on the square in historic Mount Vernon where the state’s most prestigious and wealthiest families once had lived.
» Property: 16 E. Mount Vernon Place and the carriage house at 17 E. Branch Lane in Baltimore
» Description: The newly renovated, mid-century town house has a sauna, steam room, two laundry areas, two au-pair or in-law apartments including one in the carriage house, and a library with built-in shelves.
» Price: $2.4 million
» Contact: Eva Higgins, Hill & Co. Real Estate, 410-435-2000 ext. 125 (office) and 410-913-2424 (cell)
“It was serendipity. I found the place and fell in love with it, came to Baltimore and then fell in love with the neighborhood,” the 39-year-old said, noting she immediately joined many of the nearby cultural institutions.
Once owned by Robert Work Garrett, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the 1850s, the property, including the attached carriage house on 17 E. Branch Lane, had been broken into apartments.
With a sensitivity to its historical elements, the Egintons renovated the house, restored it to a single-family dwelling, refurbished the garden and reattached the carriage house, now the location of a garage, play room and loft apartment.
“We did a very thorough and detailed renovation from top to bottom, relining all the fireplaces, redoing the leading in the windows, but updating the kitchen and bathrooms with modern appliances like Thermador double ovens and a monstrous Thermador refrigerator,” she said.
Gillian Cook, a neighbor who also renovated a nearby house and works as a painting conservator at the Walters Art Gallery, said, “I’d been in the house before when someone had put a circular staircase inside. I was so glad to see that [Eginton] removed it, restored the rooms to their original proportions, preserved its historic integrity and yet made it completely modern.
“The house is simply elegant.”
The 6,000-square-foot, six-bedroom, seven-bathroom, one-car garage house offers an incredible array of amenities including a deck overlooking the garden.
A large kitchen, designed for someone who loves to cook, contains white marble countertops, two Bosch dishwashers, a microwave drawer, steam oven and two refrigerated drawers for wine.
In the master bedroom are spacious his and her baths, the wife’s bath with Tunisian tile set in an Isnik style.
The floors throughout the house are walnut and oak with inlaid borders.
“It is just a fabulous house. Elizabeth did a masterful job with the renovation, and it is not the sort of house that can be reduced to a description of rooms,” said Eva Higgins, the Realtor handling the sale.
