Then and Now: Lutherville Station Shopping Center

A weekly post features historic places in Lutherville-Timonium and how they've stood the test of time.

The shopping center by today’s Lutherville Light Rail station has not had the best of luck. It’s been revived, recently, by an Old Navy, a Borders Books and Music (which survived a corporate downsizing) and, as of this weekend, a MOM's Organic Market. Around 2000, however, it was virtually deserted. The shopping center, formally known as Timonium Mall, saw its heyday in the '80s and '90s. It was anchored by Caldor’s, a department store, and a small collection of interior stores. The Kirk-Stieff Company, a Baltimore-based silver company, had a small gift shop there. So did a shoe store, a dry cleaners, a music store and a tiny ice cream parlor. Before Caldor’s, Stewart's department store held the busy mall together until 1983. And before …

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Then and Now

The Lutherville-Timonium Post Office Through the Years

This is Part II of a three-part series exploring the history of the post office from Lutherville to its current Timonium home on Deereco Road.

Editor's Note: You can read Part I of this exclusive Then & Now series here.    “The Day of the Move” It was a Saturday in 1987. All the mail carriers are clear on that. They’re also pretty sure it was Sept. 23. Lutherville-Timonium had officially burst at the seams, and the day had come to move the Lutherville post office to its new home—the big, old John Deere building on the eponymous Deereco Road, in Timonium. The building seemed huge. It covers 197,000 square feet of space. The roof is a pre-cast concrete plank roof and is supported by 1½ inch-thick steel cables, tied to concrete anchors in the back of the building. The result is a swooping, swayback, tent-like structure that has no interior underpinning—it’s entirely supported by the…

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Joanna Franklin Bell

9:21 am on Sunday, May 1, 2011

Those get a mention next week, in Part III. Stay tuned!   more ›

PHOTO ESSAY: A Historical Tour Through Lutherville

Join Ralph Welsh as he leads his tour throughout some of Lutherville's historical locations.

Ralph Welsh, the village historian for the Lutherville Community Association, led a tour of local residents through historic Lutherville on Saturday. He educated his neighbors on the community's first residents, Victorian architecture, and even a few little-known secrets. Lutherville is a Victorian village. Most of the first houses built were built in the Victorian revival style. Welsh considers our local Victorian architecture to be both a rebellion against the Industrial Revolution as well as a celebration of the Industrial Revolution. That seems like a contradiction, but Welsh explained his comments. As cities were expanding in the 1800s, and getting dirtier, noisier and more clogged, the “country cottage” became the Victorian ideal. …

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'To Gather and Preserve': Ralph Welsh’s Historical Mission

A Lutherville historian educates his neighbors on the value of our local history. Join his "Walking Tour of Historic Lutherville" on Saturday, April 9 at 1 p.m.

Ralph Welsh started researching the history of Lutherville before he even lived here.  More than 30 years ago, he parked his car in an undeveloped lot he’d just bought, on Kurtz Avenue, and joined a walking tour. It was one of the Lutherville historic house tours, when neighbors get the chance to check out the old interior Victorian architecture, see the insides of the parlors and the bedrooms, and learn the stories of the first residents. He’s kept his interest in Lutherville history ever since. And he built his house right on that lot on Kurtz Avenue. Ask him why he moved here in the first place, and he’ll tell you, “location.”  That’s the same reason he’ll tell you that Lutherville’s founder, Dr. John Morris, came here in the early …

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Then and Now

Then and Now: The Maple Rest Tea Room

A weekly post featuring historic places in Lutherville-Timonium and how they've stood the test of time.

From homemade milkshakes, to local crab cake sandwiches, to imported Korean cars — that’s a broad history for one small corner of York Road and Bellona Avenue in Lutherville. Decades ago, the Maple Rest Tea Room was a mom-n-pop soda counter where Lutherville students caught the bus to Towson High School and availed themselves of the milkshakes, sodas, candy and newspapers sold within. Bud Cornell, a Lutherville resident for most of his 79 years, remembers the Maple Rest well. “They had at least one pinball machine,” recalled Cornell. “My experience with it was primarily going there after church on Sunday to pick up the Sunday Sun.” Cornell and his cousin Jim Long, who currently helps run the Baltimore County Historical Society, both …

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Then and Now

Then and Now: Heaver Plaza

A weekly post features historic places in Lutherville-Timonium and how they've stood the test of time.

Heaver Plaza has been a Lutherville landmark for 40 years. Looming about the rest of the York Road skyline, the Heaver Plaza rooftop shines its square perimeter of lights above the surrounding neighborhoods every night when the sun goes down. Those lights are festive, as we neighbors know—in December, they are green and red for the holidays, and during football season, they glow purple in support of the Ravens. It’s not magic—it’s a fearless maintenance staff. Carolyn Norwood, vice president of Columbia Bank inside Heaver Plaza’s first floor, said, “The guys go up on the roof, and they actually have to reach over to change those lights. I guess one guy’s laying over and one’s holding on.” Norwood has worked inside Heaver Plaza since 1986 …

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