Montpelier Mansion, sometimes referred to as "Montpelier I", was a house in western Laurel, Maryland, now more closely associated with
Fulton, Maryland within
Howard County,
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 ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. The Georgian style building was built circa 1740 and demolished following a 1994 historic survey with addendum and photos dating as late as August 1995.
History
In 1711, Henry Ridgely III (1690–1749) patented the 307 acres of land in the Howard district of Anne Arundel County called Broken Land, and in 1719 patented Ridgely's Great Park with his brother in law Thomas Worthington. The Montpelier house was constructed by Colonel Henry Ridgely IV (born 1728) and his wife Ann Dorsey (1730–1767) circa 1770. His daughter Ann Ridgely married Major Thomas Snowden, building a manor house in Laurel also named
Montpelier. Prior to building the house, Ridgely IV raised volunteers in 1752 to fight in the
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
. From 1760 to 1779, Ridgely served as justice to Anne Arundel County.
Montpelier was a two-and-a-half-story Georgian style building with a central hall. The brick building rested on a stone foundation with stucco facing, later covered by layers of shingles and siding. A large wooden barn and silo were onsite with the property. The property was later owned by Herbert Wessel.
The property was purchased by Hopkins Road Limited Partnership. In 1994, a historic survey was undertaken declaring there was not enough integrity of the site to be historic.
Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning The Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning (DPZ) manages planning and development in Howard County, Maryland, a Central Maryland jurisdiction equidistant between Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
Land use in Howard County has evolve ...
rezoned the historic property to PEC (Planned Employment Center). Montpelier was completely demolished to build the MP5 commercial office building adjoining the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab research park. Maple Lawn Developer Jeffery Greenburg did not preserve the historic building or 12-acre site like Laurel's
Montpelier. In May 1996 the building was burned, then torn down. A lone indication of the historic site's existence is the road to the facility named Montpelier Road.
Montpelier was one of many historical buildings in the region with valuable real estate that was lost to fire, including
Troy Hill (1990),
Avondale Mill __NOTOC__
The Avondale Mill was a large gable-front stone structure, three stories in height, and 10 bays long by three wide. It was located on the bank of the Patuxent River in the city of Laurel, Prince George's County, Maryland. It was constru ...
(1991),
St. Mary's College(1997),
Ammendale Normal Institute (1998), Phelps Log Cabin – moved from North Laurel to Elkridge (2001), and
Henryton State Hospital (2007, 2011).
See also
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*
Montpelier Mansion (Laurel, Maryland)
Located south of Laurel in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, Montpelier Mansion is a five-part, Georgian style plantation house most likely constructed between 1781 and 1785. It has also been known as the Snowden-Long House, New ...
*
Applied Physics Laboratory
References
External links
Snowden-Warfield Family{{Commons category, Montpelier Mansion
Houses in Howard County, Maryland
Welsh-American culture in Maryland