Fairly early in the pandemic, I moved to a new house.
I felt conflicted, leaving the 1880s rowhouse on Howard Street that I’d bought in 2009. But it had some issues that were becoming bothersome. The dining room was cramped and dark, and the kitchen small and awkward, making the increasing Old Line Plate-related press requests to film or photograph me there unfeasible. We’d filmed the 2019 Baltimore Sun bit in my cousin’s Medfield kitchen. Plus… I really wanted a porch.
When we went to view the house that would become our new home, we were nervous if it was even ethical to do so, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Masked and gloved, we toured a spacious place not far from our own and we made an offer.
Real-estate boringness ensued. Suspenseful for us, dull to read about. Through luck, privilege, a little of my own savvy and diligence (if I do say so myself), and the help of our excellent real estate agent, we somehow ended up moving in May of 2020. We carried half our things on foot.
I soon learned that the model we bought was called a “Daylight Rowhouse.” Built to be wider rather than deeper, there was a window in each room. Many of these houses didn’t even require skylights. Builders began advertising this style to Baltimore’s upwardly mobile around 1915. “Why buy an old house with small dark and ill-ventilated rooms, when a house 20 feet wide, 7 rooms and bath… can be had for the same money?,” read one ad in the Sun. Hey! That’s how I felt, over a century later! Suffice it to say, we love it here.
