NEW! Baltimore is Beautiful postcards now available as a PUZZLE
New! Baltimore is Beautiful PUZZLE
Viva Books Has the NEW Puzzle
Viva Books Has the NEW Puzzle
Viva Books Has the NEW Puzzle
Viva Books reopened after a devastating fire. Viva is back, and so are Handy Gleeson "Doors on the Squares" note cards. Now you can show your love for Baltimore with "Baltimore is Beautiful" art postcards and PUZZLES. Get 'em while they last!
They're handcrafted in Baltimore, y'all.
The LATEST THING - Puzzles!
Viva Books Has the NEW Puzzle
Viva Books Has the NEW Puzzle
The colorful "Baltimore is Beautiful" art postcard now comes in a 300-piece PUZZLE. This new item joins "Doors on the Squares" blank note cards now available at Viva Books. Choose note cards depicting 6 different doors found on beautifully preserved Gilded Age mansions on Baltimore's Mt. Vernon Place, a National Historic Landmark District.
Sip and Color with History and Art Cards
From our event on Thursday, September 26, 2024 sponsored by Stem & Vine and Viva Books
Baltimore Heritage’s Johns Hopkins made Baltimore history fun at Stem & Vine's beautiful wine bar and plant store in historic Brown's Arcade.
Viva Books made sure everyone had Handy Gleeson note cards to color as they sipped wine and listened to the stories behind the doors sketched on the cards.
If you missed the event, you can still get Handy Gleeson note cards at Viva Books.
Featured History: Garrett-Jacobs Mansion
What went on behind those doors?
The Garrett-Jacobs Mansion combines 7, 9, and 11 West Mt. Vernon Place into a 39,200-square-foot mansion. It contains the work of two of America’s most distinguished architects: Stanford White and John Russell Pope.
The mansion was the most expensive home built in Baltimore in 1884 when it was purchased by John Work Garrett for his son, Robert possibly as a wedding present. That same year, Robert married Mary Sloan Frick.
The lavish gift from father to son masks the bitterness of their earlier relationship fractured by the Civil War.
The rich and powerful John Work Garrett was president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and he used his position and the railroad to provide critical support to the Union cause.
The clash occurred when the rebellious 16-year-old Robert ran away from home and joined Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army in Virginia. But the traitorous teen was no match for his daddy’s money. John hired a posse, snatching the wayward Robert from the Confederates, and returning him to Baltimore. After that, Robert dutifully graduated from Princeton and took over his father’s position as head of the railroad.
Robert eventually suffered a mental health crisis and had what appeared to be kidney disease, which he managed for nine years with the help of Dr. Henry Barton Jacobs, his live-in physician.
Robert died at 49, but six years later “shockwaves rippled up and down the Eastern Seaboard” when his 51-year-old widow married his physician, the 43-year-old Dr. Jacobs. Hence, the hyphenated mansion name.
Garrett-Jacobs Mansion
Combines 7, 9, and 11 West Mt. Vernon Place
Featured History: 27 East Mt. Vernon Place
What went on behind those doors?
Lawyer Thomas Robert Clendinen and his family lived here after the Civil War. Thomas Clendinen was born and raised in Baltimore, the son of the distinguished Dr. Alexander Clendinen, who had defended Baltimore against the British in the War of 1812.
As a rebellious 14-year-old, Thomas ran away from home in 1861 to join the Confederate Army, fighting against the Union that his father fought to save nearly 50 years earlier. Thomas fought for the Confederacy for the entire war, including in the battle of New Market and other engagements.
Nonetheless, in 1866, Thomas returned to Baltimore, read for the bar, and became a lawyer. Even though he was duty-bound to uphold the very laws that he had taken up arms against, his disloyalty was overlooked. He was even appointed as a US Attorney by another parodical son of Baltimore and Confederate hiding in plain sight, the former mayor of Baltimore, Thomas G. Hayes.
27 East Mt. Vernon Place
1 of 6 Doors on the Squares handcrafted art cards.
Featured History: Hackerman House
What went on behind those doors?
The Thomas-Jencks-Gladding House, now called the Hackerman House, was built 1848-1850 for Dr. John Hanson Thomas. Dr. Thomas came from generations of early US patriots. His father served as the Chairman of the Committee of Defense during the War of 1812 and served in Congress. His great-grandfather, John Hanson, was President of the Continental Congress.
Dr. Thomas famously broke that tradition when, on September 12, 1861, he was arrested, along with several other Maryland legislators, for his pro-Confederacy leanings. He was imprisoned for several months.
The building is renowned for its grand circular staircase topped with a circa 1892 Tiffany glass skylight. After Willard Hackerman purchased the house in the 1980s, he gave it to the city of Baltimore. The property was then awarded to The Walters Art Museum to expand its collection.
Hackerman House
1 West Mt. Vernon Place