Photo credit:
Marie Cooke, 12/1979
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Bare Hills House
Inventory No.:
BA-881
Date Listed:
8/6/1980
Location:
6222 Falls Road (MD 25), Mount Washington, Baltimore County
Category:
Building
Period/Date of Construction:
c. 1857
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Description:
The Bare Hills House, with its steep gables and board-and batten siding, is an example of the Gothic Revival style of architecture popular in the mid-19th century in America. Set on a stone foundation, it is a frame dwelling of two stories with a full basement and an attic topped by an eight-sided cupola. The house is three rooms deep with asymmetrically placed side wings. Shutters frame the first floor windows. All of the second story windows save the one over the main entrance on the north elevation are shutterless. The steep roof is covered with asbestos shingles. The house is situated on the highest part of the property about 100 feet west of Falls Road, one mile north of the city line. The main feature of the east elevation which faces Falls Road is a two-story bay window, the upper bay containing six large-pane, double-hung sash windows sheltered by a jerkinhead roof. The first floor bay is shielded by a high ceilinged porch which wraps around three sides of the house. Graceful columns on octagonal bases support the porch roof. This first floor bay and all the windows opening to the porch are French doors providing access to the porch from four separate interior rooms.
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Significance:
Bare Hills is a circa 1857 frame Gothic Revival influenced house that is significant as an excellent example of both the Gothic Revival style and mid-19th century cosmetic architecture in Maryland. It also is significant in local history as the residence of three prominent citizens of Baltimore County: Horatio Gates Jameson, a physician for whom the house was erected; Thomas Buchanan Steele, also a doctor, who bought the house in 1865 following Mrs. Jameson’s death; and John Wright, who bought the house in 1875, a member of the family which owned the Rockland Bleach and Dye Works located a short distance to the north on Falls Road.
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