Architecture

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Charles Belfoure / co-author of the Baltimore Rowhouse

Reservoir Hill is home to the most diverse, intact collection of late 19th and early 20th century urban architecture in the Baltimore City. Along almost every street can be found an array of eclectic styles ranging from Italianate rowhouses to Renaissance Revival apartment buildings to free standing Queen Anne houses.

The neighborhood has this wealth of architectural riches because it was a popular residential district for Baltimore's wealthy and upper middle classes who still chose city living when the trend of the time was toward suburban living.

The architectural quality of Reservoir Hill is not only set by the Queen Anne and Picturesque private residences along Eutaw Place and Mount Royal Terrace designed by Baltimore's first tier of architects, but the quality of the many rows of developer-built houses on the neighborhood's interior streets. The west side of the 2300 block of Linden Avenue, lined with unique pedimented porch front houses with bays and iron spot roman brick has no equal in the city. Another very exceptional group is along the east side of the 2300 block of Eutaw Place, a handsome colonnaded row of three story homes built by the J.C. German Company. Other streets like the 2100 blocks of Brookfield and Callow Avenues boast handsome rows of alternating swell and square fronts.

Reservoir Hill's has a wonderful juxtaposition of styles on many of its streets. Across from the pedimented rows of Linden Avenue is a group of small Queen Anne houses next to three unusual semi-detached homes with Second Empire roofs.

Scattered throughout the community and along Druid Hill Lake Drive are fine examples of early 20th century apartment buildings. Apartment living, long looked down on by the upper classes of the era, gradually became an accepted alternative to traditional houses, resulting in beautifully detailed buildings with ornate lobbies and spacious apartment layouts.