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Baltimore Architecture: Then and Now The Marlborough Apartments, 1701 Eutaw Place image info Architect: 1901 E.H. Glidden Even before Eutaw Place was laid out in the 1850s, what is today the Bolton Hill neighborhood was the site of "country seats" of wealthy Baltimoreans, one of which was the Popplein family home at what was destined to bcome the north corner of Eutaw Place and McMechen Street. By the beginning of the 20th century, however, such houses were hopelessly outdated even to the eyes of their owners. The Poppleins sold their mansion to a consortium of developers headed by William F. Cochran who envisioning Eutaw Place lined with many apartment favors and in 1902 unveiled their contribution to this goal in the form of the eleven-story Marlborough Apartments, designed by E.H. Glidden. The building boasted all of the latest amenities and was one of the first Baltimore buildings built completely wired for electricity.  Its apartments sometimes numbered as many as ten rooms. As its builders had hoped, it attracted the city's elite, most notably two sisters who went on to become Baltimore's best-known 20th-century art collectors, Dr. Claribel Cone (1864-1929) and Miss Etta Cone (1870-1949). The sisters maintained separate establishments; Claribel was on the sixth floor and Etta on the eighth.  They lined their walls with an unparalleled collection of post-Impressionist works which after their deaths went mainly to the Baltimore Museum of Art. By that time, however, Eutaw Place, if not all of Bolton Hill, was perceived as being in decline as the rise of the suburbs swept off the intended residents of buildings like the Marlborough. What in 1928 had been 114 apartments for the rich were then replaced by federally-subsidized one bedroom apartments and efficiencies. Image information: left: View of the Popplein Mansion - 1701 Eutaw Place (CC3009, MdHS/BCLM Photograph Collection). right: Current View of The Marlborough Apartment Building. Photos courtesy of John Orrick, 2002. Previous Next Baltimore Architecture - Homepage Site Contents 1 Masonic Building 2 Enoch Pratt House 3 Graham-Hughes House 4 American Brewery 5 Belvedere Hotel 6 Camden Station 7 Alex Brown Building 8 Williams-Small House 9 Timanus Mill 10 The Pembroke Apartments 11 Merchant's Exchange 12 Old B and O Building 13 Denny & Mitchell Building 14 Guardian Trust Building 15 Old Post Office Building 16 St. Joseph's R.C. Church & Washington Firehouse 17 The Maryland Casualty Building 18 Church of the Redeemer Building 19 The Popplein Family Mansion/Marlborough Apartments 20 Samuel Hoffman, later the Dr. William Osler Mansion 21 Cohen Brothers, later the Dr. Robinson Building 22 Saint Peter's Catholic Church 1770 23 The Baltimore Humane Impartial Society Building 24 Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad Calvert Station 25 The Richmond Market Building Site 26 Dr. Charles Howard's Site and Mount Vernon Place M.E. Church 27 The Stephen Broadbent Mansion "The Glen Mary"

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