User:Eli.pousson/Hebrew Orphan Asylum (Baltimore, Maryland)

The history of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum site spans nearly 200 years of development from its beginning in 1815 as “Calverton,” the country home of Baltimore banker Dennis Smith, to its vital role providing social and medical services for the City of Baltimore, first as the Baltimore City and County Almshouse from 1820 through 1866 and then as the Hebrew Orphan Asylum from 1872 through 1923. The building transitioned to serve as the West Baltimore General Hospital from 1923 through 1945 and finally as the Lutheran Hospital of Maryland from 1945 to 1989. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum was designed by Lupus & Roby, the partnership of Edward Lupus (1834-1877) and Henry Albert Roby (1844-1905), and constructed by Edward Brady (1830-1900).

Calverton

In late 1815 or early 1816, Baltimore banker Dennis A. Smith (1765-1853) commissioned French architect Joseph Ramée (1764-1842) to design a country home on the western bank of Gwynn Run Falls Valley nearly two miles beyond the edge of the city. This early Greek Revival building featured, “a raised basement and a two-story portico with an arched ceiling, a peaked roof and a second-story platform for ornamental statuary... a hipped roof and a tall cupola.” The exterior of the building was described as, “‘rough cast of a straw color, the window sills and facings of marble and free stone.’”

Hebrew Orphan Asylum

West Baltimore General Hospital and Lutheran Hospital of Maryland