Aigburth Vale house at 212 Aigburth Road in

Towson Towson () is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 55,197 as of the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Baltimore County and the second-most populous unincorp ...

was designed in 1868, by architects Niernsee & Neilson, as a country home for wealthy actor

John E. Owens John Edward (or Edmund) Owens (2 April 1823 in Liverpool – 7 December 1886 in Maryland) was an English- American comedian, born in the Aigburth district of Liverpool, England but taken to the United States when three years old. He beg ...

. Most of the property of the estate was originally known as the Rock Spring Farm of Edward Taylor and the parcel was reported to have been over when it was purchased by Owens in 1853. The mansion is a wood-framed, three-story structure is an example of

Second Empire Second Empire may refer to: * Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783 * Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) * Second French Empire (1852–1870) ** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...

architecture and as such, is topped by mansard roofs on the tower and wings. For a period after 1886, the mansion functioned as an inn and as a summer home for Owens's widow, Mary. In 1889 the majority of the land associated with the estate was sold at auction by the mortgage holder: the

Sheppard Pratt Hospital The Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, known to many simply as Sheppard Pratt, is a psychiatric hospital located in Towson, a northern suburb of Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1853, it is one of the oldest private psychiatric hospitals in the nati ...

to John Hubner, a Catonsville developer. Thereafter the mansion house and surrounding was sold to Dr. George F. Sargent, as a private mental hospital from 1919 to 1950. Hubner sold the agricultural land to the Towson Nurseries who subdivided portions of it for sale to the Baltimore County Board of Education in 1943 and 1946 for use as the site for

Towson High School Towson High School is a high school in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, founded in 1873. The school's current stone structure was built in 1949. Located in the northern Baltimore suburb of Towson and serving the surrounding communities ...

and its surrounding campus. The mansion building was leased to Baltimore County Board of Education in 1950 for use as administrative offices and thereafter became the current owners of the building. The Owens estate was once surrounded by over but today it stands within a suburban neighborhood. As designed, entry to the estate was gained from York Road along what is now Cedar Avenue. The gatehouse building of the estate, built in 1860 by Jacob Reese, still stands though the intersection of Cedar and York has been closed.Baltimore County Panorama, Brooks and Parsons, , p. 23 The building has been identified as an outstanding example of Second Empire architecture. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

on April 27, 1999.

References

External links

Photo of Aigburth Vale
County government buildings in Maryland Houses in Baltimore County, Maryland Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maryland Houses completed in 1868 Second Empire architecture in Maryland National Register of Historic Places in Baltimore County, Maryland {{BaltimoreCountyMD-NRHP-stub