BCPL History and Genealogy - Perry Hall - Notable Homes in Perry Hall.
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Notable Homes in Perry Hall
by David Marks
Historian, Perry Hall Improvement Association

The oldest standing home in our community is Perry Hall Mansion, which rests on a secluded five-acre property near the Gunpowder River. Built in 1773, the mansion is now one of the last remaining colonial homes in Maryland. From here, Harry Dorsey Gough supervised his vast 1,000-acre estate, "Perry Hall," which stretched across most of the northern part of our community. The spacious, sixteen-room mansion was partially burned by fire in 1824, but was soon restored, remaining in the Gough family until 1875. It was then purchased by Eli Slifer of Philadelphia. Slifer divided the property into farms of various sizes, selling the estate to immigrant families, many of whom were of German descent. The mansion still stands, nestled in a grove of trees in the rural reaches of Perry Hall.

Writing of his visit to Perry Hall Mansion in 1806, Reverend Henry Smith described it as the largest house he had ever seen, with spacious gardens covering four acres. The mansion expresses different phases of Harry Dorsey Gough's life. Gough was fond of good food and entertainment in his younger days. He built a wine cellar below the mansion which was so large that ox carts were driven right into the area to unload the huge wine casks they carried. Next to the wine cellar, also in the basement, was the original kitchen for the mansion, which was almost as big as most drawing rooms.

On the first floor of the mansion is the great hall, a magnificent ballroom with crystal chandeliers and an expansive ceiling. Near the library and the drawing room, a spiral staircase extends into the second floor, which has five spacious bedrooms with long windows. All told, there are sixteen rooms in the house, with four servants quarters in the attic. The house is built of stone covered with white cement.

This extravagance reflects Harry Dorsey Gough's early life. After he and his wife were converted to Methodism, however, Gough devoted his funds to religious work, building a small chapel adjacent to the mansion. Although this has since been destroyed, Gough was instrumental in the development of Camp Chapel Church, which still stands on East Joppa Road.

Another old house is the Spamer residence. It is not known who built the small stone residence on Ferguson Road, but Daniel Chambers purchased the property in 1827. The ten-room house was bought by Elmer J. Spamer in 1881. Five generations of the Spamer family have since lived here, although the house has been enlarged to three stories and sixteen rooms.

There are two stone houses along East Joppa Road, near Honeygo Run, which date back to at least the early Nineteenth Century. The Moore family residence was built in 1852 by John Moore. It is now surrounded by the family's orchards, on the east side of Chapel Hill Elementary School. Another old structure is the Jacob Seddon house, presently occupied by the Honeygo Child Development Center. No one knows how old this structure is, but its architecture dates back to before the Civil War.

Two other homes are worth noting, although both have long since been demolished. Bishop's Inn was a stage coach stop, a bakery, a butcher shop, and a hotel. When this ivy covered, stone house was demolished eleven years ago for a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, it took the bulldozers several days to uproot and destroy the ancient structure. Another notable home, since demolished for the Perry Hall library, was Halbert Mansion, owned by that family for almost a century.

The old house that stood at 9200 Belair Road was said to be older than Perry Hall Mansion. This was the center of Linden Farm, which stretched across Darnall's Sylvania, a land grant covering much of the Belair Road corridor. The farm was named for a huge Linden tree originally brought from England by John Darnall. Both the house and the tree were demolished many years ago. This property later became Lassahn Field, where soccer games and carnivals were held, then was sold in 1986 to the Strutt Group for development of the Cedarside Farms housing development.

It was shortly after the Second World War when most homes in Perry Hall were built, part of the suburban housing boom. The neighborhood immediately south of Belair Road, near Penn and Carlisle Avenues, was developed by William Schaefer, who built brick bungalows and named many of the streets after prominent families in the community. During the 1950's and 1960's, most homes were detached ranchers, and it was only in 1969 that our first apartment complex, Chapel Manor, was constructed. Since the mid-1970's, most development in the community has been town home or single-family housing, including the huge Seven Courts/Oakhurst neighborhood, which did not even exist before 1970.

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The text version of this page was last revised on 26 August 2008.
The graphics version of this page was last revised on 26 August 2008.
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