Former Bank Headquarters Restored as a Hotel

The classically styled Old Town National Bank building at 221 N. Gay Street was constructed in 1924 as a bank headquarters. The first floor still retain an array of historic details, including a two-story lobby, cornice and parapet wall, grand marble stairway, and even vault spaces.

In 2010, 91ĘÓƵ celebrated the renovation of the building and the conversion of the bank into a Holiday Inn Express Hotel. The work by owner Old Town Properties LLC and local architecture firm Kann Partners included refurbishing and repairing a host of historic features ensuring the building is preserved for future generations to appreciate.

221 N. Gay Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Built in the 1830s, the 600 block of Stirling Street was home to free working people, both African-American and white, living in modest Federal style rowhouses. Some residents worked in the industrial and commercial businesses that grew up around the nearby Jones Falls—sawyers, carters, cigarmakers, and tailors. Nearly 180 years later, these houses appear much as they did to their original inhabitants.

By the 1960s, like much of Oldtown, the houses of Stirling Street had fallen into disrepair. As part of an urban renewal project to repurpose the Gay Street commercial corridor into a pedestrian mall, the Baltimore Urban Renewal Agency planned to raze Stirling Street, along with 97% of Oldtown’s housing. Local preservationists, led by state Senator Julian Lapides and Peale Museum director Wilbur Hunter, launched a campaign to preserve the buildings.

Senator Lapides led a bus tour, bringing residents of Stirling Street to see well-preserved historic homes on Baltimore’s Tyson Street and Seton Hill. Hunter provided research to refute the claim that the rowhouses should be demolished because they were “slave’s quarters” and to prove their historic value. One afternoon in October 1972, over hamburgers at the office of Housing and Community Development Commissioner Robert Embry, Jr., Julian Lapides and his wife persuaded Embry to allow them to find a way to save the houses. Embry agreed, providing Lapides could show there was an economically feasible way to do so.

After a consultant with a national reputation in historic preservation offered to buy and develop the entire block, Embry relented. The houses were offered for $1.00 to individuals who agreed to undertake the expense of restoring the houses. This “urban homesteading" project was one of the first in the nation. The 24 owners were selected from over 400 applicants, mostly young professionals, both African-American and white and all true urban pioneers.

The Old Town Mall project was dedicated in June 1976. Though Old Town Mall has suffered serious decline, Stirling Street, restored around the same time, remains pristine and well kept, a testament to the power of historic preservation. As Senator Lapides wrote in 1974:

“The Stirling Street narrative contains a valuable lesson for city administrators: people are willing to return to the city and invest in its future when given the opportunity of restoration.”

612–669 Stirling Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Located on Hillen Street, the Null House is a rare eighteenth century home dating from around 1782. Once common throughout the city, only a handful of these small wood frame houses remain, largely in Fells Point. Named for the antique shop that occupied the property from 1929 through the 1970s, the Null House itself was nearly demolished to make way for a parking lot but, in 1980, the property was thankfully relocated and preserved.

Originally located at 1010 Hillen Street, the house was east of the Jones Falls on land belonging to John Moale, Jr. (1731-1798), who in 1752 sketched the earliest view of the Town of Baltimore. The house was built between 1782 and 1784 for Stephen Bahon, a blacksmith around the same time the area east of the Jones Falls was annexed into Baltimore City. In 1784, it was purchased by Wolfgang Etschburger, a veteran of the American Revolution who later also served during the War of 1812. From about 1850 to 1880, the building was used to sell flour and meal; the Italianate storefront may date from this period. In the early twentieth century, the building was the headquarters of the Excelsior Printing Company. From 1929, it served as an antique shop run by the Null family until the 1970s.

The building almost met its demise in 1980 when Baltimore Gas and Electric Company wanted to raze the building for a parking lot. On September 28, 1980, the building was moved 300 feet diagonally across the street to its current location. The contractor who undertook the job was Teddy Rouse, son of famous developer James Rouse. The Null House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on January 27, 1983.

1037 Hillen Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Founded in 1799, Oldtown’s Independent Fire Company maintained their Independent No. 6 engine house at Gay and Ensor Streets for over fifty years. In 1853, the company tore down their original engine house and replaced it with the present home of the Baltimore City Fire Museum with its distinctive six story bell and clock tower. Designed by Baltimore architects Reasin and Weatherald, the firehouse is unique in Baltimore’s architecture. The 103-foot Italianate-Gothic tower was copied from Giotto’s campanile in Florence, Italy and features a cast iron “skeleton”—an early example of this material in use for structural purposes. The newly formed Baltimore City Fire Department purchased the building in 1859 for $8,000, when it became known as Engine House No. 6. The firehouse’s apparatus was a steam engine weighing 8,600 pounds named, appropriately, the “Deluge.” In 1893, all members of the City’s fire department were paid, which ended the grade of “callman.” This silenced firehouse bells, which were used to summon the callmen. Many bells were given to churches, but Engine 6 hung on to its bell and it became a source of pride to Oldtown’s citizens. Oldtown, on the east side of the Jones Falls, did not see damage from the Great Fire of 1904. Firemen pumped water from the Jones Falls to quell the advance of the flames—a move which saved east side landmarks such as the Phoenix Shot Tower. Engine House No. 6 also served as emergency hospital as the Sun reported at the time, “The upper floor of the engine house resembled an army field hospital in war time, with its scores of brawny men with seared and blackened faces and their tattered remnants of blue uniforms.” In 1970, the tower was restored and the station remained in active service until 1976, when the Oldtown Memorial Fire Station (now the Thomas J. Burke Fire Station) became the home of Engine 6. In 1979, the old station became the home of the Baltimore Fire Museum and the Box 414 Association.

Watch our on this building!

416 N. Gay Street, Baltimore, MD 21202