Brief History

Sudbrook was designed in 1889 by Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. (1822-1903), the founder of landscape architecture in America. Olmsted, co-designer of New York City's Central Park, was a visionary who foresaw the trend toward suburban living before it became an established phenomenon. In 1869, he completed a design for Chicago's Riverside, his first suburban village, noting that "no great city can long exist without great suburbs." Riverside, Sudbrook, and Druid Hills (Atlanta) are the only surviving residential designs of Olmsted, Sr. Each was planned to encourage the "harmonious association" of residents and to provide a "respite for the spirit" - a relief from crowded and stressful conditions in cities.

Before becoming a suburban experiment, "Sudbrook" was the 800 acre estate of James Howard McHenry, a gentleman farmer descended from a distinguished Maryland family. In 1876, McHenry contacted Olmsted about designing a suburban village on his large Pikesville property, but no plan materialized. Following McHenry's death in 1888, a group of investors from Boston and Philadelphia incorporated as the Sudbrook Company. The Company worked with Olmsted, who was assisted by his adopted son and partner, John Charles Olmsted, to design a suburban community on 204-acres purchased from the McHenry estate.

Olmsted's design for Sudbrook, exceptional for its time, remains a work of art. In an age when streets were arrow-straight, Olmsted's roads were all curvilinear. So unusual were curving roads that the Sudbrook Company initially could not find a surveyor who could lay them out. Olmsted created a picturesque approach and entranceway for Sudbrook - leading traffic around a tight curve and across a narrow bridge, after which five gracefully curving roads fanned out to weave through the community. Olmsted also included sixteen deed restrictions governing lot size and setbacks, excluding commercial activities, requiring acceptable sanitation practices, and limiting cows, horses and chickens (pigs were prohibited). These comprehensive land-use restrictions predated Baltimore County zoning regulations by several decades. Although the majority of lots were an acre or more, Olmsted also included smaller lots, a practice not common at the time.

Olmsted was particular about trees and vegetation and their placement. He incorporated open green spaces throughout his design, to be used by the community for holiday fetes and informal gatherings. From its earliest days, Sudbrook has used its "triangles" and park area for community gatherings and still has annual holiday parades and festivities.

Olmsted designed Sudbrook to be a year-round suburban village. Between August 1889 and April 1890, the Sudbrook Company constructed water, drainage and sewer systems (developed by Col. George E. Waring, Jr., a well-known sanitary engineer), roadways, a train station, nine "cottages" and an inn - all intended to entice potential purchasers to buy immediately and to stimulate further sales. Baltimoreans, however, were slow to accept the idea of residing permanently eight miles from the city, a significant distance before the automobile. From its opening in May 1890, Sudbrook (renamed "Sudbrook Park" by its developers) attracted prominent Baltimoreans eager to rent for "the season" (May through October) or to stay at the inn, which became the social center of the community. While Sudbrook had a few year-round renters from the beginning and a growing population of permanent residents each year, sales lagged. The Sudbrook Company's inability to sell a substantial number of lots, combined with the popularity of the seasonal hotel -- whose occupants more than doubled the size of the community -- led to Sudbrook Park's early reputation as a "summer community."

By 1898, Sudbrook faced competition from suburban developments closer to the city with access to electric trolley lines that offered frequent and cheap service. Hampered by limited Western Maryland Railroad service, distance from the city and other factors, the Sudbrook Company ceased operations in 1910, having overseen the construction of about thirty-five houses. Ten to fifteen more houses conforming to Olmsted's plan were built before the inn burned in 1926. Further development came to a halt with the Great Depression of 1929.

In the period of automobile-driven housing growth before and after World War II (1939 to 1954), Baltimore's suburbs grew at a record pace. Sudbrook Park participated in this new development, as hundreds of Neo-Colonial and Cape Cod style brick homes were built around the early cottages. The suburban village was now complete. Although the new development altered aspects of Olmsted's design, the artful skill of Olmsted's planning principles was powerful enough to mold the diverse parts into a unified whole.

In the 1960's, a new threat arose. The State purchased homes and open space in Sudbrook to build a six-lane expressway through the community. The community association fought the proposed project. After a portion of Sudbrook Park was entered on the National Register of Historic Sites and Places in 1973, the State agreed to delete the expressway inside the Beltway rather than tunnel the project through Sudbrook. In the late 1970's and early 1980's, the community again mobilized to minimize the adverse impact of a planned rapid transit line through the community. Compromises between Sudbrook and the Mass Transit Administration allowed the community to retain its narrow gateway bridge (a key element of Olmsted's design), preserve its original entranceway layout, save numerous trees that otherwise would have been felled and negotiate a replanting plan. In 1993, the oldest portion of Sudbrook Park became a Baltimore County Historic District; the 600 block of Cliveden Road and the 900 block of Adana Road became County Historic Districts in 1995 and 1999, respectively.

Sudbrook has weathered many changes since it was originally planned as an innovative "suburban village" by America's first and foremost landscape architect. Today, the towering oaks that once formed a massive green umbrella near the entranceway bridge are gone, as is the hotel from another era. What remains is a tribute to Olmsted's vision -- a design that is more than the sum of its parts, more than just artfully designed curvilinear roads, majestic trees, open green spaces, turn-of-the-century and World War II era homes. Thanks to Olmsted's genius and the well-preserved elements of his design, Sudbrook Park remains a cohesive community in the true sense of the word and a "respite for the spirit," as important now as it was more than a century ago.