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Maryland Historical Society
Library of Maryland History
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Baltimore, MD 21201
Phone: 410-685-3750
Fax: 410-385-2105
E-mail: library @mdhs.org

Baltimore Architecture:
Then and Now

  
Denny & Mitchell Building, 718  North Charles Street
image info

Architect:
1888  George Archer

Until the Civil War, the lot on the southwest corner of Charles and Madison Streets was probably the garden of the adjoining Moale mansion, but from 1865 forward there was a house on the site, which was purchased in the late 1880s by George Brown Graham (1854-1890), a scion of the Brown family of investment bankers. Mr.Graham commissoned the architect George Archer to turn it into a French chateau for the banker, his wife, and their little girl, but Mr. Graham died around the time of its completion. Mrs. Graham, who had inherited it, moved in and married again, but when she was widowed a second time in 1897, she moved out and never lived in the house again. It was rented out until the late 1930s, when the Grahams' only child, Mrs. Isabella Brown Graham Hughes (1887-1977), returned to live in Baltimore after a long sojourn at "Prospect Hill," the family's Catonsville estate. She spent the second half of her long life in the house, which remained a private residence long after all the other large houses on Charles Street had been converted to other uses.

Exterior architectural features include a handsome entry porch with marble columns and a three-story turret in a mask and swag design topped with a turquoise finial on the Charles Street elevation, and terra-cotta cipher in the gable. The Madison Street elevation incorporates a number of diverse details including pediments, circular window heads, a corbeled chimney, etc. The craftsmanship displayed in the construction of this mansion reflects the large number of highly skilled craftsmen available during the period of work.

Image information
left: Charles and Madison, SW corner Residence, March 1931 (MC6171, MdHS/BCLM Photograph Collection).
right: Photo by John Orrick, 2000.

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Baltimore Architecture - Homepage
 

Site Contents
1  Masonic Building
2  Enoch Pratt House
3  Graham-Hughes Home
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"