The “Spring House” located on the western edge of the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) campus may not even be seen by most visitors, and those that happen upon it probably don’t know what it is.
Once located further north, in what is now Roland Park, this Spring House was the equivalent of a refrigerator for a country farm or estate. As explained in the BMA description, a spring house worked like this: “Crocks of milk, jars of butter, and wire baskets of fresh eggs were placed on the floor in a trough twelve to eighteen inches deep. Cold water from a nearby spring flowed continuously through the trough—in one side of the spring house and out the other. Masonry walls about one and a half feet thick kept the interior temperature at about 55 degrees so that potatoes, onions, fruit, and vegetables stored on shelves would stay fresh during the hot summer months.”
Designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, this particular neoclassical spring house was built in 1912, but fell into disrepair after the estate was sold to the Roland Park Company for development. In 1935 it was acquired by the BMA, which moved the building to its current location and restored it to its Greek Temple-like splendor.
A street in Roland Park near Falls Road now called “Spring House Path” hints at where the structure may have stood. A streetcar house was built near this location in 1897, but it was replaced by an apartment / condominium complex in the late 1930s.
