She’s back, and she’s brought a friend.
The second day in her attic office in the newly renovated Ruscombe Mansion, Eliza Smith Steinmeier looked up from her desk to see a pair of black vultures out on the balcony checking out the premises. All that stood between the environmental executive and her sudden visitors with their determined gazes and 5-foot wingspans was an open window and a flimsy mesh screen.
“I made a lot of noise,” Steinmeier said, recalling how startled she was just a few weeks ago. “They didn’t try to come in, but they didn’t leave. I looked at them, and they looked at me.” Eventually, the pair turned their attention to preening each other and ultimately flew away.
Since early October, the beautifully restored historic mansion — newly referenced as Stone Mansion — has become the location of several businesses and nonprofits as well as the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper organization, where Steinmeier is executive director.
Once upon a time the building also was home to the female black vulture whose migratory species is globally recognized as endangered. In 2006, she dramatically charged from her nest in the attic, revealing her presence for the first time during a walk-through by Tony Azola, whose family was the building’s eventual new owner.
“I only saw this giant black thing coming out of the dark, and we backed up,” Azola said. “It had just laid its eggs.”
Following the rules for protecting endangered species, the Azolas left mom alone and worked on other parts of the house. After the chicks grew up and the family migrated for the summer, the Azolas took the opportunity to block their entry. But the next year the resourceful mother got in again through a broken window and hatched another family.
When the birds took off again, the Azolas spent the year fixing windows, plugging holes, renovating the building, and blocking the bird’s return — until its recent visit.
The 9,000-square-foot stone mansion with matching carriage house sits on an acre in northwest Baltimore that makes it a centerpiece among its neighbors — the Cylburn Arboretum and the Coldspring Newtown and Woodlands communities.
Now the building, which sat abandoned for 10 years, will celebrate its reopening with a ribbon cutting today at 4 p.m. To ensure its perpetual preservation the stone mansion, which was renovated at a projected cost of $650,000, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and recognized as a Baltimore City landmark — vultures not withstanding.
