House and Garden Tour Returns to Calvert

The finishing touches are still being made at a handful of Calvert County homes in preparation for the annual Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage.

Organizers of the Saturday tour expect nearly 800 people to visit 10 sites that include historic farmsteads, unique architectural styles and lush gardens. Calvert has participated in the tour since the 1930s and alternates years with Charles and St. Mary's counties.

"It is a pleasant, fun, old Maryland tradition, and we are very pleased to keep it going," said Margaret Powell, executive director of the event.

The self-guided tour, in its 71st year, takes place in counties across the state to raise funds for historic preservation and beautification and to educate Marylanders on local communities, Powell said.

Houses chosen for the tour have some outstanding feature, whether it is the architecture, the history, an art collection or fabrics used in the house, she said.

"If we don't raise funds to preserve these old places, they won't be any more," Powell said. "Our children and grandchildren won't have this heritage to discover for themselves."

Nancy Thompson, chairman of the tour committee for the Calvert Garden Club, has her home, Little Cove Farm, on this year's tour. It's the second time the house, which includes gardens and an 18th-century log cabin converted into a dining room, has been featured. The Port Republic home is listed on the Calvert County Historic District register.

"I really feel like we are not really owners. We are stewards of these homes," she said. "It is kind of like our obligation to share them with the public every now and then."

This year, preparation at Little Cove has included reworking some siding and porches and adding a few gardens and a new patio, all of which will be finished on time, Thompson said.

Cynthia Turner and Don Harden, who own Bittersweet Hill in Owings, recently added new gardens surrounded by wrought-iron fencing, which they found at antique shops while touring historic houses in Maryland and neighboring states.

One of the many outbuildings on the property, a summer kitchen, also was enclosed, Turner said.

The couple bought the 1902 home in 2003 and have been working since then to restore it.

This is the first showing of their home, but they are big fans of taking the tours, Turner said.

Linda Bodycomb said she agreed to put her 1996 Hellen Creek home on the tour to support this year's charity, construction of a sensory garden at Calvert Hospice, and as an impetus to complete new gardens on her property.

"We could have built something that was very modern, like a lot of the houses around here," Bodycomb said of her home. "But we decided to do something that looked historical from the outside with a more traditional inside -- with some very modern touches here and there."

In Calvert, the tour is sponsored by the Calvert Garden Club, with help from the Chesapeake Beach Garden Club. Funds raised through the event have supported the county's historical society archives building and the addition of a vestibule on the county's one-room schoolhouse.

Tour sites will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Advance tickets are $30 and can be reserved by calling 410-586-9353, or purchased at Dunkirk Florist and Gifts, Second Looks Books in Prince Frederick and Maertens Fine Jewelry & Gifts in Solomons. Tickets also can be purchased Saturday at any house on the tour for $35. Single-house tickets are $15.

The complete list of houses on the tour, along with directions to each, is available through a link at http://www.calvertgardenclub.com.