No blinged-out crib for this Oriole. Nick Markakis prefers a house as quiet and low-key as he is.
When Orioles right fielder Nick Markakis went looking to buy his first real house in the Baltimore area, he wanted to purchase something that reminded him of his beloved home state Georgia. Having lived briefly on the 22nd floor of Spinnaker Bay in the heart of downtown Baltimore and later in a Canton row house with close friend and Orioles teammate, pitcher Adam Loewen, Markakis was eager to...
With a life steeped in the arts, the Baltimore Opera's Michael Harrison can't help but to put on a show-even in his own home.
When a reporter knocks on the massive front door of Baltimore Opera Company director Michael Harrison's stately brick colonial residence in Kernewood, it's not Harrison, but Deborah Goetz, the opera's head of marketing, who answers the door. Another publicist, John Yuhanick, sits nearby in the living room on a high-backed Victorian chair. A few minutes later, Harrison, most certainly on cue...
When a cool pool meets a great patio design, it instantly becomes the favorite space of your home.
Building a pool is a big step that takes careful research, weeks to complete, and a lot of cash. But the rewards can be tremendous, especially if the surrounding patio, landscaping, lighting, and electrical work are professionally designed and installed.
Not only does a pool provide a therapeutic visual focus to the backyard, but, done right, it can transform your outdoors into an oasis so...
Space Odyssey
In 1995, after looking at more than 50 properties, newlyweds Ann Hagerty and John Boyce had all but given up hope on finding their dream home.
“I had looked at so many houses that had tiny doorways and low ceilings and felt very suburban,” recalls Hagerty, an architect with her own firm Ann Hagerty & Associates. “At the time, I was still working full time in New York, I was pregnant and...
Landscape architect Jay Graham gives landscapes a sense of place.
It is a hot day at Wye Hall, the plantation of William Paca on the Wye River. The brick, Colonial-revival mansion (a reconstruction of the original home that burned) rises up on a series of lush green terraces surmounted by boxwood. In smaller gardens, coneflowers, Russian sage, Germander, crape myrtle, and zinnias resiliently face the heat, and wild meadows meander into agricultural fields...
With the technology changing almost by the month, we check out the new choices in home theaters and electronics.
So you want a mind-blowing, chest-rumbling movie theater experience from the comfort of home, but the very thought of exploring home theater technology makes you weak in the knees? Not to worry, we've done the work for you. From figuring out what you want, to how it'll look (and sound) in your home, we cooked up a comprehensive how-to primer to guide you through today's ever-changing audio-...
Roof replacement may not be the most glamorous of projects, but it's one of the most important.
Replacing your roof is "like going to war with your house," says Jeffrey Fick, of Fick Brothers Roofing. You heard it here first: Dust, debris, and noise will invade your life, and your landscaping will likely get a bit, um, trampled.
Storing things in your attic? Those old baseball cards are probably going to be covered in dust by the end of this thing. Think about it. The homestead's...
For these four couples, an empty nest was the only excuse they needed to reinvent their homes.
Some things happen both gradually and suddenly: Like when the last child finally leaves home for good. Suddenly, the house is strangely quieter, the kitchen cleaner, the gasoline and grocery bills a fraction of what they once were. And gradually (usually after a massive cleanup), there's plenty of extra space. Oh, the possibilities. After years of parental sacrifice, paying tuition and...
A lack of direct sun doesn't mean you can't enjoy colorful and resilient flowers and plants.
If you feel like the only thing you can grow in your back yard is mold and lichen, despair not. A shady garden spot can be brought to life with a variety of eye-catching evergreens and flowering perennials that will produce rich foliage and an abundance of colors throughout the year.
For added texture, the sun-starved gardener can interplant with an occasional clump of flowering annuals,...
The subprime mess hasn't spared Baltimore, but local banks have (mostly) limited their exposure.
Hey, it could be worse.
Sure, home sales are down, foreclosures are up, and some homebuilders are starting to default on loans. As the third quarter wrapped up in October, it was clear that national financial institutions had lost billions—$7.9 billion for Merrill Lynch and $1.2 billion for Countrywide Financial, for example—thanks mostly to subprime loans. Locally, 1st Mariner Bancorp, a...
