Fair Meadows is a historic home located at Creswell,

Harford County Harford County is located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 260,924. Its county seat is Bel Air. Harford County is included in the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is al ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. It is a -story

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 ...

–style house constructed in 1868 for the last owner of Harford Furnace, Clement Dietrich. The house is constructed of irregularly laid

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

and features a

mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

, dormers with rounded hoods, and stone

quoins Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...

. The interior has a center hall plan and includes intricate inlay designs, black and white marble tiles in the center hall, plaster ceiling ornaments and

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

s, marble mantels, and original crystal chandeliers. Also on the property are the ruins of a round

springhouse A spring house, or springhouse, is a small building, usually of a single room, constructed over a spring. While the original purpose of a springhouse was to keep the spring water clean by excluding fallen leaves, animals, etc., the enclosing stru ...

, a one-story stone carriage house, a brick

smokehouse A smokehouse (North American) or smokery (British) is a building where meat or fish is cured with smoke Smoke is a suspension of airborne particulates and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with t ...

, and three hip-roofed coursed rubble stone outbuildings. The estate was later home to

Eastern Christian College Eastern Christian College or ECC was a co-educational, private Christian college that was located in Bel Air, Maryland, United States. It was supported by Christian churches and churches of Christ, which is part of the Restoration Movement. Hist ...

. The house 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 v ...

in 1980. On May 3, 2020, a devastating fire caused extensive damage to the building.

References

External links

*, including photo from 1979, Maryland Historical Trust website Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maryland Houses in Harford County, Maryland Houses completed in 1868 National Register of Historic Places in Harford County, Maryland 1868 establishments in Maryland {{HarfordCountyMD-NRHP-stub