Large Abandoned House in Baltimore MD

Gallagher Mansion and Outbuilding, Baltimore Maryland

Date added: January 01, 2024 Categories: Maryland House

The original Italianate core of this house was built between 1854 and 1857. This date is surmised on the evidence of contemporary maps as well as some decorative wood trim inside the house. The 1854 Fifteen Mile Radius map by A. E. Rogerson and L. P. Brown show no house in the approximate vicinity and position of the Gallagher Mansion, while the 1857 Taylor map of Baltimore City and County clearly shows a house in just the right spot, and labels it as belonging to Dr. Woods. Inside the house, the scroll-cut brackets on the ends of the steps and the wide heavy moldings around the doors and at the baseboards are typical of the period and tend to corroborate the dates suggested by the maps.

Italianate was the dominant local style in the mid-nineteenth century, so Italianate villas were quite common around Baltimore. While most have been demolished, quite a few remain; the closest remaining one to this house is Tivoli, about a mile east of Govans. While Tivoli is larger than Dr. Woods' original house was, it is much plainer and more box-like in its massing. A closer comparison could be made with The Mount, a very large Italianate villa in the Windsor Hills section of West Baltimore. Although The Mount is much larger and more elaborately detailed than Dr. Woods' house, there are clear similarities in their uses of a projecting central section over an arcaded loggia.

Dr. Benjamin W. Woods (1817-1883), the man for whom the original Italianate house was built, was born in what is now Howard County, received his medical training at the University of Maryland, and entered the Army in 1838 as an assistant surgeon. He was attached to the command of Colonel (later General and President) Zachary Taylor, serving in Florida during the Second Seminole War, hostilities arising out of the forced relocation of the Seminole Indians. He left the Army in 1842 and after living briefly in Ellicott City, settled permanently in Govans, where he practiced medicine. In 1866 Woods was the only physician practicing in that area, and as late as 1878 there were only three additional doctors there. In 1854 Woods was one of the five principal organizers of the Turnpike Company that extended Charles Street from its old northern terminus between the present 23^rd and 24^th Streets just above the old city line north to what is now Bellona Avenue, north of the present city line.

From 1848 to 1866 Dr. Woods leased the land where the house stands. In 1866 he bought it outright, then sold most of it, including the portion containing the mansion, to Rachel Vaughn, a New Yorker about whom no information has been found. Whether or not Woods continued to live in the mansion after 1866 is not clear, but he was certainly out by 1873. He had kept a small parcel of land on which two small houses stood at the corner of the estate, fronting on York Road, and he lived in one of these houses toward the end of his life.

In 1873 Rachel Vaughn sold her portion of the land, including the mansion, to Patrick T. Gallagher, for whom the house is named. In the 1877 Hopkins atlases of Baltimore City and County the small corner plot is labeled Dr. Woods, while the bulk of the land, including the mansion, is labeled Patrick Gallagher.

It is likely that the Second Empire alterations and enlargements were done for Patrick Gallagher in 1873 or shortly thereafter. The original house was only two stories high, three rooms wide, and one room deep, with a small two-story rear wing. While this would have been ample for Woods, a lifelong bachelor, Patrick Gallagher had a large family, and probably needed to enlarge the house. This, and the fact that the Second Empire style was in vogue in 1873, strongly suggests that Gallagher is responsible for the alterations.

There have been a few Second Empire mansions in Baltimore, but not nearly as many as Italianate mansions. One such house, called Beaumont (demolished) was in Govans, and bore some striking similarities to the Gallagher Mansion in its detailing, especially in the mansard and dormers; this suggests that one imitated the other, or that they were designed or built by the same local craftsman. The closest Second Empire mansion still standing is Clover Hill at University Parkway and Greenway. Clover Hill is less elaborate, more box-like in its massing, but has a more elaborate window treatment than the Gallagher Mansion.

Patrick Gallagher was born in either County Tyrone or County Fermanagh in Ireland, and came to America with his parents and siblings some time between 1848 and 1850, escaping the political and economic upheavals that were going on in Ireland. He moved to Govans and opened his grocery business several years before he bought the mansion. Among the family papers (on deposit in the Maryland Historical Society manuscript collection) there are invoices and receipts from the business that indicates that two items that Gallagher supplied in great quantity were meat and liquor.

Govans takes its name from the estate of William Govane. In 1755 Frederick Calvert, the sixth and last Lord Baltimore, granted several hundred acres of land to Govane, a wealthy shipowner from Scotland who came to Baltimore in the 1740s. The estate remained relatively inactive for some time. In 1786 a turnpike from Baltimore to Lancaster via York; what became the present York Road; was built, following the route of an old Indian trail from Canada to the Chesapeake. Weekly stagecoach service was established in 1797. The opening of the road prompted agricultural development of the area as a source of food for the growing towns at either end of the road. Trading posts and supply depots for the farms and estates, and stopovers for travelers sprouted up along the road, and villages grew up around them. One such village was Govanestown. (Over the years the name mutated to Govanstown, and finally to the present Govans.) The road and the villages continued to serve those functions into the twentieth century. It is in this historical context that Dr. Woods, Patrick Gallagher, and their respective work in Govans should be viewed.

The house remained in the Gallagher family until Patrick Gallagher's granddaughters, Martha and Antoinette Bokel, the last occupants, vacated the house and sold it in 1972.

The outbuilding, the only survivor of several small buildings that stood near the mansion, was apparently a carriage house and stable. The Gallagher family documents indicate that they and the Bokels did have recreational horses. This building is the only one of its type known in Baltimore City. It is a country vernacular building, built entirely of wood, while other remaining carriage houses in Baltimore are usually of an identifiable major style and built of brick or sometimes stone. Also, most of the remaining carriage houses are associated with large townhouses; there are few remaining ones associated with country houses, and none that look like this one.

Building Description

The Gallagher Mansion is a large house near the southwest corner of York Road and Notre Dame Lane in the Govans section of northern Baltimore City. It was originally built in the mid-nineteenth century as an Italianate villa, and was subsequently enlarged and embellished in the Second Empire style of the later mid-century. The walls are built of local rough fieldstone and rubble. There is a mansard roof covered with a decorative slate including polychrome bands of hexagonal-cut and diamond-cut shingles. The house is three stories high, the third story being within the mansard. Its most distinctive architectural features include the mansard roof, the French windows, the Italianate entrance loggia, the true stone construction, and perhaps most interesting, the rear service wing, which upon close examination reflects the stages of alteration and enlargement that gave us the present Second Empire house. The house was built, in its original Italianate form, sometime between 1854 and 1857. The Second Empire enlargements were done in 1873 or shortly thereafter. The outbuilding is a rectangular wood carriage house, two stories high, with a hip roof and cupola.

On the main (eastern) elevation, a central section three bays wide projects forward from the rest of the house, and the mansard on this section is higher than the roof on the rest of the house. In the first story of this projection, there are three arches leading into an entrance loggia, where there is a doorway in the center and French windows on either side with full-height louvered shutters. On the second story on this front projection, there are three 4/4 windows. At the third story, on the front of the mansard, there is a pair of 4/4 windows in a single pedimented dormer.

On either side of the front projection, there is a large side wing. The east (front) elevation of each side wing is one bay wide, but it is a very wide bay. On the first story of the east elevation of each side wing, there is a French window; on the second story of each wing there is a 4/4 window; and on the third story of each wing there is a 2/2 window in a pedimented dormer.

Across the entire first story of the east facade, there is a roofed wooden porch with square wooden posts and quarter-round decorative brackets.

Between the second story and the mansard roof, there is a paired bracket cornice that extends around the front and both side wings. This cornice appears to be contemporary with the mansard, probably replacing an earlier smaller one.

The north elevation of the northern side wing is two bays wide. On the first story, there is a French window and a 6/6 double-hung window. On the second story, there are two 4/4 windows, and on the mansard, there are two 272 windows, each inside a pedimented dormer. The south elevation of the southern side wing is similar, except that it has only a French window in the center of the first story.

On the west elevation of the southern wing, there is a French window on the first story and a 4/4 window on the second story. The very narrow west elevation of the northern wing is unfenestrated now, but before the rear wing was widened (discussed below) this wall was similar to the west elevation of the southern wing. When the rear wing was widened, the windows were covered, and the French window was converted to an interior door.

The rear wing extends about twenty-five feet from the main part of the house. It, too, is built of stone, and is three stories high including a mansard. But it is of a distinctly smaller scale than the rest of the house. The floor levels are lower, the cornice line is lower, and the roof is lower. Each of its three sides is two bays wide. Its cornice is a simplified version of the paired-bracket cornice on the front of the house.

The rear wing does not pre-date the main house, as is sometimes the case in country mansions with dependencies. Part of the rear wing was built at the same time as the main body of the house, and the rest was added later. At the time the house was first built, the rear wing was substantially narrower than it is now, and it had a very low second story with a gable roof. Furthermore, it was on axis with the main entrance, making the entire house a symmetrical cruciform. The rear wing was enlarged by extending it to the north, almost doubling its width, by raising the height of the stone walls several feet, and by adding a mansard-roofed third story.

On the north elevation of the rear wing, on the first story, there is a 6/6 window and two tall 4/4 windows. There is a small porch on this side, in the corner where a rear wing joins the main house. It has posts and brackets similar to those on the front porch. Curiously, there is no door leading out onto it. The porch has been collapsed by vandals, but enough of the original posts, brackets, and roof structure are still present to allow for a faithful restoration.

On the second story of the north side of the rear wing, there is a single 4/4 window to the right and a pair of 4/4 windows to the left; on the third story there are two 2/2 windows each inside a pedimented dormer.

On the south elevation of the rear wing, on the first story, there is a small door and a 6/6 window. The second story has two 4/4 windows and the mansard has two 2/2 windows, each in a pedimented dormer.

The west (rear) elevation of the rear wing has a small wooden door and a large 6/6 window on the first story. The doorway is surrounded by the silhouette of a one-story wooden rear addition that is no longer standing. On the second story of the west elevation, there are two windows, and on the mansard, there are two dormers that are smaller and simpler than those on the sides and front of the house.

It is possible to see the old height, width, and roof angle on the southern and western walls of the rear wing. On the south wall, there is a barely visible horizontal line in the stone at the level about the middle of the second-story windows. On the west wall, there are barely visible diagonal lines near the top of the wall where the gable used to be; the point of the gable was above the present cornice line.

The stonework on the house varies from section to section. On the rear wing, it is rubble of random sizes and shapes laid in hardly discernible courses. The stonework on the main body of the house is also rubble, but it is more clearly coursed, and it is quoined with large squared-off blocks. The piers of the entrance arches are of granite ashlar, more finely finished than the rest of the stone.

The most identifiably Italianate feature on the house is the entrance loggia with its three round arches. The main part of the house was originally only two stories high; the roof was probably a low-pitch hip roof. There is no evidence of there having been a tower, but there may have been a cupola. Unlike many Italianate villas which are massed asymmetrically, this house was built symmetrically.

The rear wing reveals much about the stages of development of the house. For instance, it is clear from the inside that the rear wing is not an older house that was added onto. If it were, its old stone east wall would still be present as an interior wall. Yet, the interior wall in that part of the house is composed of studs, lath, and plaster, but no stone - except on that part where the rear wing was widened, covering part of the stone west wall of the main house. On that part of the stone wall, which was originally exterior but became interior, there had been a French window. That huge opening was reduced by brick infill and was made into an interior door. The stone and brick were covered by plaster.

When the rear wing was widened and heightened, the old gable roof rafters had to be removed; all except for the east end rafters where the roof joined the main house. This end pair of rafters is still present inside the wall, and they can tell us the exact height, width, and angle of the old rear wing roof.

Also upon widening, the old north wall of the rear wing was demolished, except at the basement level, where it can still be seen.

The carriage house is rectangular, about twenty-five by thirty feet, two stories high, with a hip roof and cupola. The walls are of horizontal board siding.

The east side has a large sliding garage door and a large window on the first story. On the second story, there is a window at either end, and in the center, there is a pair of diagonal board doors in a wide loading bay; above that is a protruding beam with block and tackle.

The south side has two doors and four small square windows in a row that suggests stable stalls. On the second story, there are two windows.

On the west side, there is a large door in the center, a window to the left of that, and a small door at the left end. There is a single large opening on the second story, of the same size as the loading door at the east end, but lacking the diagonal board doors.

The north side has only two windows, one at either end of the first floor. Integrity:

The house has not been substantially altered since the enlargements of the 1870s. There was, for a time, a one-story wooden rear addition that was built in the late nineteenth century and was demolished in the 1970s.

The house has been damaged by fire and vandalism; nevertheless, it retains its historic integrity. It is able to convey its historic qualities and associations despite the damage because all of the key elements that make it significant are still present and are intact or easily restorable.