List price: $1,950,000
Year built: 1849
Real estate agent: Nick Piscatelli, Maryland Commercial Ventures, LLC
Last sold price/date: $500,000 on April 26, 2005
Property size: 5,368-square-foot lot
Unique features: In 1849, Baltimore was a booming port city of nearly 170,000 people, including the residents of a stately new three-story brick home at 106 E. Chase St., in Mount Vernon. Nearly two centuries later, having dodged a wrecking ball in the 1960s, the mansion bears a dignified elegance akin to that of its past. The hand-painted plaster ceilings, decorative Roman murals and stained and beveled glass windows hark back to a time of hoop skirts, top hats and grandeur for the well-to-do.
Each of the 15 rooms has a cachet of its own; no two are remotely alike. There are black chestnut sliding doors and marble bathroom floors; cherry kitchen cabinets and finely carved mantels atop the nine fireplaces. The dining room is paneled in Honduran mahogany and gold leaf. The back courtyard has a stylish cast iron fountain.
Among others, the home has belonged to George Carrell Jenkins, a wealthy financier, philanthropist and Civil War veteran who lived there from 1880 until he died in 1930. Jenkins and his wife, who was kin to Francis Scott Key, founded Bon Secours Hospital and funded the construction of two buildings (one of them Jenkins Hall) on the campus of Loyola University Maryland. Jenkins’ country estate, in Baltimore County, became the site of Villa Julie College (now Stevenson University).
Have a news tip? Contact Mike Klingaman at jklingaman@baltsun.com and 410-332-6456.
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List price: $2,250,000
Year built: 2001
Realtor: Charlotte Savoy, The KW Collective
Last sold price/date: $1,260,000 / July 12, 2013
Property size: 3.36 acres
Unique features: This three-story colonial has the traditional perks of a high-end home — a two-story foyer, lustrous hardwood floors and an inordinate number of bathrooms (six). But the all-brick home also has more offbeat features that may tip the scales for particular home-seekers. For instance, that cavernous foyer boasts a chandelier on a hoist system; the kitchen is full of (100) cabinets; and there’s a trickling waterfall in the back yard of the nearly 3.5-acre estate in Howard County.
Want more one-offs? There’s a dumbwaiter to the three-car garage and a heated koi pond. The breakfast room has a fireplace. The dining room has two chandeliers. The butler’s pantry has a wet bar. And the home has several space-saving pocket (sliding) doors — though, with more than 7,600 square feet of living space, the place has elbow room throughout.
So much for anomalies. Like a growing number of trendy residences, this one boasts a home theater and fitness center. There’s also a basketball hoop outside, a perk that’s curiously absent from many high-end estates. The property abuts a tract of 275 acres of preserved land.
What’s missing? A swimming pool, though there’s plenty of room to build one. Until then, one can swim with the fishes; the koi won’t bite.
Have a news tip? Contact Mike Klingaman at jklingaman@baltsun.com and 410-332-6456.
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“Was I nervous, facing those guys? I wasn’t smart enough to be nervous,” O’Dell told The Baltimore Sun in 2008.
What he had was spunk.
“Competition was what I was after,” O’Dell said. “I believed I could win every time I went out there.”
Summoned in the seventh inning of a 4-3 game, the 25-year-old left-hander trotted in from the bullpen before a hearty roar in Baltimore, which was hosting its first Midsummer Classic since its return to the big leagues in 1954. The city went all-out to strut its stuff, including the pregame 50-car All-Star motorcade from the players’ hotels (Lord Baltimore and Emerson), through flag-draped streets to the stadium swathed in bunting of red, white and blue. En route, Mickey Mantle, Warren Spahn, Al Kaline (Southern High) and other players lobbed plastic baseballs to eager fans who, for days, had also staked out their quarters, The Evening Sun reported:
“A slim brunette in a pink chemise waited patiently in the lobby of the Emerson and told a bystander, ‘I don’t have a reservation, but I’ll wait here all night to get a look at Ted Williams.’ ”
Storekeepers milked the event in newspaper ads. The Pimlico Hotel promoted “all-star food” for out-of-towners, and a local haberdasher plugged a line of “all-star” Stetson straw hats. The day before the game, Gutman’s department store announced an appearance by Orioles catcher Gus Triandos, the club’s other All-Star selection, in its sporting goods department. Excitement was such that both Triandos and O’Dell appeared on “The Woman’s Angle,” a local TV talk show aimed at female viewers.
If O’Dell was cowed by the limelight, he didn’t show it. The native of Newberry, South Carolina (pop. 8,000), seemed to take the big-city hoopla in stride.
“Billy never got excited, no matter the situation,” Orioles Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson once said. “He talked about four times slower than I do, and he walked off the field about five times slower than me. Billy’s personality never changed.”
In Baltimore since 1954, when he signed for $12,000 as the team’s first “bonus baby,” O’Dell had won just 13 games since then for the struggling Orioles. He made the All-Star team despite an 8-9 record, and figured to sit in the bullpen all day.
It was a steamy 90 degrees at 1 o’clock when — before a record Baltimore crowd of 48,829 and a national TV audience — Vice President Richard Nixon threw out the first pitch. (Nixon sat among 14 Secret Service agents, some armed with baseball mitts to stave off foul balls.) During the game, 20 fans sought help for heat prostration; all returned to their seats and stuck it out.
As the game moved toward the late innings, his team clinging to a narrow lead, AL manager Casey Stengel rang the bullpen. Fifty years later, O’Dell recalled the moment:
“Casey called down and said, ‘Get Billy hot.’ Everybody thought he meant [the Chicago White Sox’s two-time 20-game winner] Billy Pierce, who started throwing. Then Casey called back and said, ‘No, I want O’Dell.’
“That sort of woke me up,” the Orioles pitcher said. “It made me realize I was more than somebody just tagging along. I was somebody who could do the job.”
O’Dell seized the moment. He pitched three hitless innings, retiring nine in a row, including the five hitters headed for Cooperstown. He needed just 27 pitches to dispatch, among others, Mays, Musial and Aaron (groundouts) plus Banks and Mazeroski (strikeouts). Only one ball left the infield, and when a pop-up ended the game, the partisan crowd went nuts as his teammates mobbed O’Dell.
“What a grand dress rehearsal for a World Series!” an editorial in The Sun proclaimed. “Given time, maybe that, too, some day will come true.”
In a jubilant locker room, surrounded by media, O’Dell answered questions with that slow twang:
“I had good stuff, all right; I didn’t throw anything but curves and sliders, and my control was OK.”
Then Stengel, the Hall of Fame manager of the New York Yankees, sidled over to chime in.
“You done splendid,” Stengel told the pitcher. “You made all them fellers look the same size.”
His effort earned O’Dell the game’s Most Valuable Player award.
“It was a great day for Baltimore, and for me,” he proclaimed.
O’Dell ended the season with a 14-11 mark for the Orioles, who finished sixth in an eight-team league. A year later, he was dealt to the San Francisco Giants. There, several years afterward, as O’Dell warmed up to face the New York Mets, their crusty old manager approached the mound. Stengel wanted a word.
“Casey walked straight toward me, which was unusual for an opposing manager to do before a game,” O’Dell told The Sun in 2008. “He stopped a few steps away and removed his cap.
“‘Mr. O’Dell,’ he said, ‘I want to thank you for the great job you did for me in the ’58 All-Star Game.’ Then he walked off.”
O’Dell died in 2018, at age 85, of complications from Parkinson’s disease.
“He was determined, a fighter all his life,” his son, Steve O’Dell, told The Sun at the time. “Dad fought to the very end.”
Have a news tip? Contact Mike Klingaman at jklingaman@baltsun.com and 410-332-6456.
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List price: $4,250,000
Year built: 1899
Realtor: Karen Hubble Bisbee, Hubble Bisbee Christie’s International
Last sold price/date: $2,093,750 / March 26, 1992
Property size: 3.47 acres
Unique features: Aging gracefully is a challenge, for homes and for humans. This 19th-century mansion near Stevenson seems to have weathered time well: its joints don’t creak, and the only crow’s feet are those of real birds on the nearly 3.5-acre wooded estate.
Built in 1899, the four-story, brick Georgian home has 25 rooms, an Old World elegance, and prominent ties to Baltimore’s academic lore. It was the country estate of the late Robert Brent Keyser, once president of Johns Hopkins University’s Board of Trustees, whose family helped establish the school’s Homewood campus in 1914.
The house features a marble foyer, a wood-paneled library and seemingly endless passageways throughout. Wherever you go, one of eight bathrooms is nearby. Two of the four bedrooms have fireplaces. One of the home’s seven hearths is in the master suite, which boasts two bathrooms — with both stone and marble floors — plus a spacious sitting room. Several stained-glass windows and French doors lend a rich atmosphere. Even the attic is classy, with its vaulted ceiling beneath the mansion’s slate roof.
The grounds are peppered with patios and terraces, as well as stone fences and benches. Out front, there’s an old-fashioned fountain to welcome arrivals; out back, there’s an in-ground pool to really make their day.
Have a news tip? Contact Mike Klingaman at jklingaman@baltsun.com and 410-332-6456.
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List price: $4,175,000
Year built: 1869
Real estate agent: Diane Donohue, Monument Sotheby’s International Realty
Last sold price/date: $2,499,000 / Dec. 11, 2020
Property size: 3.05 acres
Unique features: This imposing three-story colonial has many perks — a bridal staircase, Italian marble, hardwood floors and its own gym. It also has a skeleton in the closet. The mansion recently belonged to Kevin Merrill, the Towson financier now serving time for running a multi-million dollar Ponzi (investment fraud) scheme. When FBI agents arrested him there, in 2018, they seized $500,000 in cash on site. “You were on your way to becoming the next Bernie Madoff,” said U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett during Merrill’s 2019 sentencing.
The elegant 19th-century estate boasts treasures of its own. Built just after the Civil War, it has six bedrooms, five bathrooms and more than 7,400 square feet of living space. Set on a quiet, tree-lined ridge in Ruxton, the home offers four fireplaces (gas and wood-burning), coffered beam ceilings and skylights to showcase the place. There are bright Italian Carrara countertops, twin wine refrigerators and an oversized breakfast island in the sprawling kitchen.
The master suite features a fireplace, a generous dressing area and a private porch. There’s also a gleaming white marble spa bath and soaking tub. A back staircase allows for private comings and goings. On the property is a patio with an all-brick hearth, a stylish parking courtyard and a heated garage that can fit five cars. That must have irked Merrill; reportedly, he owned about 20 of them.
Have a news tip? Contact Mike Klingaman at jklingaman@baltsun.com and 410-332-6456.
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For seven years (1968-’74), Warehime entertained spectators with her daily hustle and playful hijinks. The game’s first ballgirl, beginning at age 11, earned national acclaim, appearing in both “Time” and “Sports Illustrated” and on two TV panel game shows, “What’s My Line?” and “To Tell The Truth.” It helped that, for three straight years (1969-’71), the Orioles reached the World Series, giving Warehime a coast-to-coast audience for her lighthearted pranks.
Once, during a game in the 1970 American League playoffs, she approached Minnesota third-base coach Frank Crosetti, ostensibly to brush off his shoes. Instead, the blonde teenager spanked Crosetti and raced off, giggling. Days later, during an Orioles’ victory over Cincinnati in Game 3 of the World Series, Warehime did the same to Emmett Ashford, the third-base umpire. Feigning injury, Ashford threw up his hands and yowled.
“Emmett played it out so well, and on national TV,” she said.
Now 68, and living in Harford County, Warehime keeps scrapbooks on hand as cherished reminders.
“Once in a while, I’ll go through those newspaper clippings and say, ‘Whoa!’ Was this for real?” she said. “Those were the good old days — and I’d love to re-live them.”
Shy as a kid, she was prodded to take the Orioles’ job by her three brothers, all of whom worked on the groundskeeping crew. The team paid her $5 a game to retrieve foul balls from her seat in foul ground, down the left-field line, and to sweep off the bases in mid-game. Everything else was ad-libbed.
“My first day, I was afraid I would trip over a base,” she said. Instead, fans embraced the girl in the orange shirt and white pants who melded with the crowd and the club.
“During batting practice, I’d play catch with some of the players,” said Warehime. “I was honored to be a part of that team; I considered them family.”
At Overlea High, classmates asked for her autograph and said they wished they were her. She got fan mail at the ballpark, but recalls no mash notes.
“I couldn’t date until I was 16,” she said. “Besides, my dad was a cop who worked games at the Stadium. I guess guys were afraid of him.”
Rival third-base coaches had no such misgivings. Once, approached by Warehime, Kansas City’s balding Joe Schultz doffed his cap and handed her a bouquet of roses that he’d hidden from view. (One of those flowers, dried and pressed, is in her scrapbook.) When, to his surprise, she reached out and kissed California’s Rocky Bridges one night, the Angels’ coach fell flat on his back.
Other coaches turned the tables. One saw her coming, picked up third base, and carried it off. Another placed a live mouse on the base; Warehime shrieked and tried to shoo it with her broom. Yet another coach (Boston’s Eddie Popowski) pulled a water gun from his pocket and squirted her in the face. The following night, she got even, soaking him with two loaded pistols.
Fans relished the mini-dramas, which perked up one-sided games. One year, to jazz up her appearance, the Orioles had Warehime wear hot pants and white boots with heels. The change didn’t last.
“I can’t believe I ran around the bases in those heels,” she said.
Her original outfit — orange shirt, white slacks — hangs in the closet of her home in Abingdon; she wears it when attending games at Camden Yards, where oldtimers remember. Other keepsakes include a personalized, gold-plated broom and a bat autographed by the Orioles’ 1970 World Series champs. Oftentimes, she’ll wear the Series ring she was gifted by her parents that year, a replica of those given to the players’ wives.
A widow, Warehime Butcher (her husband’s surname), stays busy, working part-time as a cart-to-curb shopper at a high-end supermarket near her home.
“I love grocery shopping; I always went with my mom,” she said. “It keeps me active; I walk about 10,000 steps a day.”
Even there, she said, she’ll get quizzical stares from customers who, between the aisles of apples and avocados, recognize her from days of yore.
“Whatever happened to?” is an occasional series following up on individuals who have made news in The Baltimore Sun. Contact Mike Klingaman at jklingaman@baltsun.com and 410-332-6456.
]]>List price: $1,899,950
Year built: 2004
Real estate agent: Skip Tolley, EXP Realty
Last sold price/date: $1,275,000 / May 15, 2018
Property size: .39 acre
Unique features: The round windows could pass for portals on a ship. A ceramic mermaid embellishes the master bath. And a 100-foot pier begs a plunge into Middle River, on sultry summer days. This contemporary home, near Essex, speaks to the sea.
A three-story residence, it sits at the mouth of Middle River and the edge of Turkey Point Park — a true surf-and-turf setting. A gated entrance leads to the multi-turreted structure, which features a two-story living room and hardwood floors. With nearly 6,000 square feet of living space, it boasts four bedrooms and four bathrooms, the fanciest of which bears the mermaid statue.
Windows abound; some are floor-to-ceiling, offering panoramic water views, others are graceful circles that give a cruise-line feel to the place. Stylish curved walls and three gas fireplaces add to the aesthetics of the home, built in 2004. There’s also a fitness room, a full porch (with retractable screens, for easy power washing) and an eight-seat theater with leather chairs.
The quiet property — the last stop on a dead-end road — includes a three-car garage, an in-ground irrigation system and a private dock with a boat lift and three jet ski lifts.
Have a news tip? Contact Mike Klingaman at jklingaman@baltsun.com and 410-332-6456.
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From the start, the airport, then called Friendship, grabbed headlines. Once completed, it dwarfed New York’s LaGuardia Airport (four times larger) and included a 9-story control tower, the tallest in the country. At nearly 10,000 feet, Friendship’s most expansive runway rivaled the world’s longest. At its opening, 75 years ago this month, Eddie Rickenbacker, World War I flying ace and president of Eastern Airlines, called Friendship “the finest airport and terminal combination in this land.”
Last year, the site — now Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport — turnstiled more than 27 million passengers. The month of June 2024 saw 2,603,847 travelers, an all-time record.
Who has trod the tarmac through the years? Everyone from Bob Hope to Bruce Springsteen. Richard Nixon once landed there; likewise, Kauai King, the 1966 Kentucky Derby champion, prior to the Maryland colt’s victory in the Preakness Stakes.
In September 1964, the Beatles attempted to sneak in during the wee hours of the morning, only to be met by 500 shrieking followers. Two dozen police cars surrounded the group’s four-engine turbojet and led the Beatles’ limousine downtown for two concerts.
Six years before, on their return from New York after winning the 1958 NFL championship, the Baltimore Colts faced 30,000 jubilant fans who stormed Friendship Airport, encircled the team bus and danced on its roof as it inched off the tarmac.
The setting hadn’t always been hectic. A century ago, the land around Linthicum teemed with truck farms growing tomatoes, melons and strawberries on the sandy soil in northern Anne Arundel County. They would not be strawberry fields forever. Conceived on paper in 1943, the airport swallowed up 3,200 acres; the city bought and razed 130 homes, then disinterred (and reburied) 170 bodies from family cemeteries. Also leveled was Friendship Methodist Church, built in 1907. When congregants fought their church’s demolition, city officials announced they would name the airport for that house of worship.
Baltimore geared up for the dedication, on June 24, 1950, with a midweek parade, from the 5th Regiment Armory to City Hall Plaza. WMAR-TV covered the ribbon-cutting ceremony, which met several snags. Though as many as 150,000 people were expected, only 10,000 showed. Cowed by fierce heat and the fear of traffic jams, the public passed, despite an appearance by President Harry S. Truman, several Maryland politicians and two marching bands. Invitees included a bevy of beauty queens in the Miss Maryland contest who got lost en route and wound up six miles south of Glen Burnie.
Nonplussed, Truman welcomed Friendship International, declaring, “I dedicate this airport to the cause of peace in the world.” Then-Baltimore Archbishop Francis Patrick Keough gave his blessing, saying, “Do thou be protective to all who journey through here.”
A parson’s closing prayer was drowned out by a row of jets passing overhead.
Inexplicably, during the service, an Air Force buzz bomb burst into flames on site. Four firemen were injured while dousing the blaze.
Much of Truman’s 8-minute speech praised the federal government’s role in the $15 million project, which irked city fathers, who had ponied up all but $2.7 million to the bill.
“Mr. Truman made much of the federal money contributions [to the airfield],” an editorial in The Baltimore Sun opined. “As a matter of record, that contribution was small. It was even smaller than it should have been … It is our airport and the credit is ours, not Washington’s.”
Following the dedication, a Western Airlines freighter taxied down Friendship’s runway and lifted off to Europe — the first plane to use the airport. That same night, in a grim irony, a Northwest Airlines DC-4 crashed during a storm in Lake Michigan, killing all 58 people on board. It was, at the time, the worst loss of life in U.S. commercial air history.
Six airlines have left BWI Marshall Airport since April 2024. Here’s why.
One month later, passenger service began at Friendship, drawing a crowd of 80,000 that Sunday. Bystanders cheered as, with cool precision, eight airlines began operating 56 daily flights. The first to land, an Eastern aircraft from Atlanta, arrived at 12:01 a.m. The first passenger to debark was a football player, Raymond Borneman, the Colts’ 22nd-round draft pick from Texas, reporting for training camp. He failed to make the team.
That day saw more congestion on the road than on the runways. With the Baltimore-Washington Parkway under construction, the only access to the airport was State Route 170, a two-lane highway that could not handle the traffic. Cars backed up as far as Linthicum Heights, three miles away.
The Sun took the poor planning to task: “It is a sad commentary … that the city must open this huge installation without having, at the same time, an adequate road to reach it.”
There were other milestones to come.
In December 1950, a four-engine plane from Rome, carrying 55 people, became the first international flight to land there. Seven years later, Friendship welcomed the initial transcontinental passenger jet in history, from Seattle, in record-setting time for a transport plane (3 hours, 48 minutes).
In October 1958, amid much fanfare, the first transatlantic jet, a Pan American 707, took off for Belgium with the airline’s president on board — though not without incident. As the plane fueled, a cut-off nozzle malfunctioned, drenching two maintenance workers in kerosene.
Tragically, the first fatalities occurred in March 1953, when an Air Force B-25 descending to Friendship at night clipped several trees and crashed, nose first, on nearby Dorsey road. Three airmen died.
Not all deaths have been airborne. In February 1974, a gunman wielding a gasoline bomb shot and killed an airport security guard, then stormed a Delta Airlines DC-9 preparing to depart. He shot the pilot and co-pilot, killing the latter. The would-be hijacker planned to crash the plane into the White House, killing President Nixon, but was wounded by a bullet from another security guard before taking his own life in the cockpit.
Other hijack attempts have ended more peacefully. One year earlier, an armed man boarded a Piedmont Airlines jet that was purring at its terminal, took two flight attendants hostage and demanded passage to Canada. He surrendered after hours-long dialogues with both a psychiatrist and Baltimore Archbishop Lawrence Cardinal Sheehan.
Eyeing renovations and a slice of Washington’s air traffic, state officials bought Friendship from Baltimore for $36 million in 1972 and renamed it BWI (Thurgood Marshall’s name was added in 2005, a nod to the onetime Supreme Court justice and Baltimore native). Proceeds from the sale of the airport helped finance the construction of the National Aquarium, which opened in 1981.
Have a news tip? Contact Mike Klingaman at jklingaman@baltsun.com and 410-332-6456.
]]>List price: $1,525,000
Year built: 1743
Real estate agent: Tressa Manna, RE/MAX Advantage Realty
Last sold price/date: $1,050,000 on June 1, 2021
Property size: 44.97 acres
Unique features: Some properties evoke a sense of the past. Two buildings on this 45-acre estate are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: a stone grist mill (1827) along Broad Creek in northern Harford County, and the miller’s house, a rubblestone structure and the oldest part of the main home, built in 1743. While contemporary additions to the storied exterior may jolt the senses, the property preserves the last vestiges of the bustling 19th-century village of Mill Green. The main house is also the only private residence in the county listed on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.
The historic home offers five bedrooms, four full bathrooms, six fireplaces and hardwood floors throughout. The kitchen and an upstairs bedroom share a striking stone wall, nearly 300 years old. A wine cellar and wet bar add perks for entertaining. The rear deck gives a view of Broad Creek and the 4,500 feet of frontage it affords for swimming, tubing and fishing.
The surroundings, mostly wooded, include a renovated, two-bedroom guest cottage; two spacious garages (4 and 12-car); a 3-stall horse barn; and the mill, nearly two centuries old, though stripped of its interior workings. There’s also a tennis court and a koi pond, with a fountain, which was originally an in-ground swimming pool built in 1938 — reportedly, the first of its kind in Harford County.
Have a news tip? Contact Mike Klingaman at jklingaman@baltsun.com and 410-332-6456.
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In The Baltimore Sun’s Best: Readers’ Choice 2025 poll, our readers voted on what’s best in the region, from wedding venues and roofers to pediatricians and hair salons. This year’s winners highlight people and businesses recognized for outstanding service and customer satisfaction over the last year.
The poll includes more than 550 winners in nearly 200 categories in six areas — Arts & Entertainment, Home & Garden, Food & Drink, Lifestyles & Shopping, Personal Services and People & Media. More than 47,000 ballots were cast, cultivating a list of your favorite museums, pizza joints, boutiques, TV anchors, radio hosts and more.
Best Clothing boutique, Menswear, Shoe store: Gian Marco Menswear
517 N. Charles St. 410-347-7974. gian-marco-menswear.com.
For what it’s worth, everyone gripes about the prices at this trendy men’s shop.
“They’re entitled,” said Marc Sklar, CEO of the Charles Street boutique that deals in luxury clothing and footwear.
Who would pay $100 for a bow tie, $260 for a cotton shirt or $400 for a pair of crocodile-and-python sneakers?
“Someone who appreciates quality,” Sklar said. “People who come here want a good product. It’s like eating fine steak rather than something from McDonald’s.”
Well-heeled patrons agree. For 35 years, they’ve been buying European dress and casual wear off the fashionable racks at Gian Marco, while touting the top-notch fabrics and customized apparel.
“This stuff is so well made that it will go out of style, and then come back in, before it wears out,” one reviewer wrote online.
“That’s almost true,” Sklar said. “Except that the merchandise we buy is so timeless that it never goes out of style.”
Twice a year, he and co-owner John Massey fly to Italy and browse the high-end clothing factories, awaiting that Eureka! moment.
“We’ve literally climbed through vaults of fabric to find things that are really unique,” Sklar said. “We’re looking for buried treasure.”
Fabric found, they make their orders, mindful of their customers’ breadth.
“Sometimes we have Italian manufacturers produce sizes they would normally not produce,” he said. “They have to understand that there are a lot of big Americans.”
How old are Gian Marco’s clients?
“Age 25 to death,” Sklar said. “We’ve done many of their burials.”
Also weddings, graduations, confirmations and Bar Mitzvahs.
“We’ll go to people’s homes to fit them, or to redo their wardrobes,” the owner said. Truth be told, customers like to peruse the shop in Mount Vernon, if only to hear the good-natured banter between Sklar and Massey. Said the former, “We’ve been in this business so long that John used to dress Moses.”
Have a news tip? Contact Mike Klingaman at jklingaman@baltsun.com and 410-332-6456.
Antiques: Second Chance
Honorable mentions:
The Painted Mill
Vintage Treasures
Cornerstone Antiques and Consignments
Barbershop: Old Line Barbers
Honorable mentions:
Two Bits barbershop
Ernesto’s Barber Shop
Westminster Barbershop
Bicycle shop: Joe’s Bike Shop
Honorable mention:
Bicycle Connection
Bookstore: Barnes & Noble
Honorable mentions:
Ivy Bookshop
Greedy Reeds
Old Fox Books & Coffeehouse
Braiding: The River Oshun
Bridal shop: Gamberdella
Honorable mentions:
Amanda Ritchey Bridal Loft
Elegant Touch Bridal and Tuxedo
Love It! at Stella’s Bridal & Fashions
Brow threading: Beautiful Eyebrow Threading and Sabita’s Threading & Spa (tie)
Honorable mention:
Rhea Eyebrow Threading
Cannabis grower: SunMed Growers
Honorable mentions:
Curio
Curaleaf
Car dealership: Jones Junction
Honorable mentions:
Heritage
Anderson Automotive
Jimmy The Boxer Auto Mall
Clothing boutique: Gian Marco Menswear
Honorable mentions:
Brightside Boutique
Fells Point Surf Co.
Mason-Mayes (tie)
My Fancy Finds Boutique (tie)
Consignment/resale shop: Habitat for Humanity Restore
Honorable mentions:
Second Chance
Uptown Cheapskate
Goodwill
Day spa: Eeyah Holistic Spa
Honorable mentions:
THE pearl spa
FX Studios
Mindful Moon
Dispensary: GreenLabs
Honorable mentions:
Health for Life
Green Point Wellness
Curaleaf
Gifts: Smyth Jewelers
Honorable mentions:
The Nest on Main
Becket Hitch
Tra CigarDiva
Grocery store: Giant Food
Honorable mentions:
Sprouts
Whole Foods
Green Valley
Gym: Krav Maga Maryland
Honorable mentions:
Club Pilates, Ellicott City
Brick Bodies
YMCA of Central Maryland
Hair salon: Lavish Salon
Honorable mentions:
Jordan Thomas Salon & Spa
K. Co Design Salon
Thirty Hair
Health food/supplement store: MOM’s Organic Market
Jeweler: Smyth Jewelers
Honorable mentions:
Radcliffe Jewelers
Saxons
Charles Nusinov & Sons Jewelers
Liquor store: The Wine Source
Honorable mentions:
Cranbrook Liquors
Bel Air Liquors
Christo’s Discount Liquors
Martial arts: Krav Maga Maryland
Honorable mentions:
US Martial Arts Academy
Monroe Hall Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
US Kuo Shu Academy
Maryland made shatter/wax (cannabis): Sunnies by SunMed Growers
Honorable mention:
Curaleaf
Maryland produced pre roll (cannabis): SunMed Growers
Honorable mentions:
Curio
Curaleaf
Medispa: LUXMODE Aesthetics
Honorable mentions:
Seidenberg, Protzko Eye Associates
Allure Aesthetics
Mason & Friends (tie)
ProMD Tox Bar (tie)
Menswear: Gian Marco Menswear
Honorable mention:
Marcia’s Luxury
Music lessons: Baltimore School of Music
Honorable mentions:
Stages Music Arts
Lutherville Music School
Music Land
Pet goods store: The Mill
Honorable mention:
Howl, McHenry Row
Pool: Padonia Park
Honorable mention:
Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore
Produced Maryland edible (cannabis): Sunnies by SunMed Growers
Honorable mention:
Curaleaf
Retirement community: Broadmead
Honorable mentions:
Miller’s Grant
Mercy Ridge
Stella Maris
Shoe store: Gian Marco Menswear
Honorable mentions:
The Good Feet Store
Run Moore
Ma Petite Shoe
Spin class: Rev cycle
Honorable mentions:
Jen McColigan, YMCA of Kent
Resistance Cycle
Yoga studio: Pilates House
Honorable mentions:
THE pearl spa
Yoga Center of Columbia
CorePower Yoga
Editor’s note: Winners and honorable mentions were determined by popular vote. Readers were invited to nominate and vote online from April to May. The ballot and results are generated solely by readers’ votes. The Baltimore Sun does not take responsibility for the services offered or advertised by those listed.
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