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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 (1820–1884) for his son, Robert (1847–1896), possibly as a wedding present. That same year, Robert married Mary Sloan Frick (1851-1936).

The lavish gift from father to son masks the bitterness of their earlier relationship, which was 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, snatched the wayward Robert from the Confederates, and returned him to Baltimore. After that, Robert dutifully graduated from Princeton and took over his father’s position as head of the railroad.

Not even wealth could ensure Robert's well-being. He 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 (1858–1939), 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. 

The Thomas-Jencks-Gladding House, now called the Hackerman House, was built 1848—1850 for Dr. John Hanson Thomas (1813—1831), who moved with his family to 1 West Mount Vernon Place in 1850. 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. 

Just as the Civil War began, Dr. Thomas famously broke the tradition of his ancestors on September 12, 1861, when he and other Maryland state legislators were arrested by Union forces, thus halting their plan to vote Maryland into secession, joining the Confederate rebellion. Dr. Thomas became a Prisoner of War from September 1861 to February 1862. 

In 1892, Mr. and Mrs. Francis M. Jencks purchased the home and remodeled it extensively, including the Tiffany glass skylight that tops the building’s renowned grand circular staircase. 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.