Restoring a Relic, Without the Mortgage

Family to Live in Historic Prince George's Mansion in Exchange for Preservation Work

Hazelwood, an 18th-century mansion in Prince George's County, is being restored by county residents living there rent-free through the historic property curatorship program run by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. The house was once occupied by Revolutionary War Maj. Thomas Lancaster Lansdale. (By Charles Cohen For The Washington Post)

Just before the bend in the driveway, the trees clear and, poof, there's a wooden mansion, so unusual that it serves as an architectural speed bump. Drivers hit the brakes to gaze at a miracle of accidental preservation.

"Looks like you have just come across the wow factor," Andy Cooper said as he greeted a visitor.

Three years ago, he and his wife, Pam, felt the same sensory ambush and have never recovered.

"When you come up the driveway and come out of the trees, it's just an incredible thing to be hiding in the woods," he said recently. What began as a curious visit up a driveway turned into what probably will be a lifelong commitment for the Coopers, who are restoring the ramshackle Prince George's County treasure, known as Hazelwood.

"You have to be able to look past the dirt and see the absolute beauty of the structure," Pam Cooper said.

Pam, who said she has "never been afraid to pick up a hammer," spends her weekdays reclaiming the mansion, mostly by herself. On weekends, Andy, an engineer, pitches in. Sometimes their son, Ethan, 16, joins them.

The Coopers, though, aren't just another family lost to the romantic quest to save a rustic relic. Rather, they are the first to participate in the county's historic property curatorship program, an effort to save some of the county's historic buildings, run by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

The county's program is modeled after a long-established Maryland curatorship program, one of two in the country, where residents live in state-owned historic homes rent-free in return for caring for the property.

The Coopers don't yet live in Hazelwood because it still needs more work to be habitable. They provide not only manpower but also materials; the county supervises with regular inspections.

Hazelwood is one of the last remnants of the lost tobacco port town of Queen Anne, which was along the Patuxent River a few miles southeast of Bowie.

While most mansions are built to impress, Hazelwood began as a modest 18th-century dwelling for Maj. Thomas Lancaster Lansdale, a Revolutionary War hero. But what started out as a three-bedroom house was added onto in major ways around 1800 and then again around 1860, according to Christopher Wagnon, chief of natural and historical resources for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

The result is a mix of Colonial stoicism and Gothic showmanship steeped in history and begging to be saved and explored.