At BWI on our way to SNA

We had a good night’s sleep and breakfast at the hotel. We paid the ransom and got the car out of the hotel garage, filled it with gas and dropped it off at the airport.

Gretta, Remington and Katherine met us at the car drop off and we went on a tour of the Chesapeake shore between Baltimore and Annapolis. We found lots of little marinas and a crab place for lunch.

After lunch, they dropped us off at the airplane station and we are hoping for a smooth trip home, connecting in Denver.

Row House Tour

After brunch, we went back over to the row house neighborhood and Remington took us on a tour of a number of row houses, either in refurbishment or interesting places. The first was one that had the owners and several tenants living in it as they tried to renovate the place, room by room. That appeared to be hard, because these places are almost a hundred years of patchwork, repairs and changes, making gutting them and starting over a pretty appealing alternative.

Next, we looked at a four unit building that Remington and some other investors had bought for about $130,000 and were working to make into four nice apartments. Cash flow when rented could be about $3,500 per month off of rental income; not a bad return, and turning a very dilapidated building into a nice building.

Lastly, we toured the house across the alley from Katie, which is a grand old house, with stunningly beautiful woodwork. It is own by a lawyer and an art professor who are raising their three kids in the neighborhood.

After our tours, Gretta and Remington hosted us all to tacos at their house and it was then back to our hotel.

Brunch at the Art Museum

The whole crowd met for brunch at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Crab cakes. Yum.

Baltimore Row Houses

We were able to get a good night’s sleep and did not need to leave the hotel until about 10:00 am, so we felt pretty good. Gretta and Remington who have lived in their row house several years, hosted breakfast at 10:00, so that was our first stop. The neighborhood is about 3 miles from downtown; just a few minutes drive.

After breakfast, we walked the few blocks to Katie’ s new house. The neighborhood is a real mix of houses in bad shape, refurbished places and vacant lots. There are also a sprinkling of old mansions scattered around. Over its 110 year history, the neighborhoods have had there ups and downs. A couple of high rise apartment buildings, mostly having low income housing, are added to the mix.

Katie’s place has been recently refurbished by a nonprofit group and was well within the income range of a young single school teacher. Not something that happens in California.

Downstairs there is a separate one bedroom apartment that she can rent out to help defray the mortgage.

The second and third floors have 3,000 square foot of living space, including four bedrooms, laundry room, walk in closets and very nicely done improvements.

The open house started at 4:00 and we were busy cutting fruit, making caprese, putting out cheese, and all of the party food until the guests arrived. We met a lot of the neighbors who had likewise moved into the neighborhood. It was an interesting group of mostly highly educated people who worked in the Baltimore and Washington DC areas. The family across the alley had three young children, the oldest of which is going to the Quaker high school that Katie is teaching at, starting in the fall.

Only one of the non-white neighbors came, even though Katie had invited a number more. Since a lot of the middle class black families have moved out of the neighborhood, there is a socio-economic divide between the new residents and the older, poorer part of the community. While the houses in the neighborhood certainly are not expensive, they are out of reach of the poor families, and the middle class black families have moved on and are not yet returning. I think the new residents want an integrated community, it is still hard, but the fault lines seem more economic than racial, which is at least part of the battle.