Returning to Scott’s house…
7 minute read
December 30, 2016, 11:29 PM
You know how it goes when you have like-minded friends. On December 28, Elyse and I got together with mutual friend Aaron Stone, and we took a field trip to the Baltimore area, revisiting various places of interest in order to show Aaron, including the Ames at Diamond Point Plaza and Scott’s house. The way that we planned the trip, since our main objectives were mostly dependent on having daylight, the plan was to spend a little time at Diamond Point, a little bit of time at H&H Outdoors (a military surplus store in Baltimore), and then have a large block of time at the Bauers’.
The Ames at Diamond Point was, for the most part, unchanged from our previous visit. We spotted a set of movable stairs near the front of the store that wasn’t there in our previous visits, but otherwise, it was the same:
Note the moss on the floor in this photo. This corresponds to a rectangular hole in the roof, due to a panel’s being left open.
Google Maps image showing the open panel on the roof. I have no idea what such a panel would be used for. Any idea? Likewise, I have no idea why the panel is open now, as the most recent flat aerial imagery, from October 2014, shows the panel secured in place.
However, the rest of the shopping center had changed, as Diamond Point Home Furnishings, which had moved into the old Sam’s Club building, was using much of the shopping center for storage. Remember the old Tandy Leather store space that I showed you before? It’s now stacked full of mattresses. Same goes for almost all of the stores along that row. The only places that weren’t used for storage were the restaurant space at the west end of the building, the Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant (which is still in business), and the former Ames. Kind of a shame that the shopping center isn’t housing stores in that area, but at least the spaces are leased.
I also got a photo of one of the road-facing signs for Diamond Point, which I had missed on my earlier visit:
This sign is the one facing Diamond Point Road, behind Ames. Note that the Sam’s Club signage is turned around, while the Ames signage is still facing out. I suppose that’s because Sam’s Club was (and still is) a going concern when this location closed, whereas with Ames, the whole chain was going out of business, therefore, there is no Ames anywhere and thus no potential for confusion.
Meanwhile, following a trip to H&H Outdoors, possibly the last one that I make to the store at its present location, as they are moving this spring, we headed over to Scott’s house near Elkridge. This was the part of the trip that we were all looking forward to, since I wanted to check out a few parts of the house that I had missed back in March, plus Elyse and I wanted to show it all to Aaron.
Making the hike up, there it was:
Other than the mattress sticking out of the side window, it looked mostly the same as it did in March. Approaching from the front, it was clear that others had been through, as a few items were in different places and in different condition than they were in March.
The tractor was now missing its seat. We found the seat on the ground nearby.
The Fisher television set was now in two pieces, as the front had been pulled off of the back and was now lying separately from the rest.
The typewriter, meanwhile, made me sad. It had been moved from where we found it before, and now it was missing a number of keys, and those keys that remained had clearly been smashed.
And now onto new territory. I had previously not explored the sides and rear very thoroughly, as Elyse and I focused on the front yard and the interior, and so there were new treasures to find. When I watched a video of the house from 2013 after all of the photo set work was completed, I noticed a phone booth laying on the ground. My assumption was that the phone booth had been removed, and that was why we had missed it. We found it, lying north of the house:
The “C&P Telephone” name makes me think that this booth is from the 1970s or 1980s, but no later than 1994, when C&P became Bell Atlantic. No idea why it’s here, though.
Then on the northwest corner of the house, we found a screened in hot tub:
The hot tub, which I had missed in March.
I took this shot to provide context for the location. The window here is the window in the back of the family room. The boarded-up door to the right, I believe led to the kitchen. We never got close enough to this corner in March out of concerns over structural integrity in this area.
Aaron and Elyse look at the corner of the house.
Going around the back, we saw the tree that had fallen on the house:
This tree fell on the house some time between 2010 and 2013, using Google Maps imagery and the 2013 video. Clearly, if the house had not already been abandoned by this point, it might have been after this event.
The basement, taken from an opening in the wall on the rear of the house. The basement was not accessible from inside, instead accessed from an exterior entrance on the house’s south side.
When we went to enter the house, much to all of our surprise, Elyse discovered that the front door was locked. That was concerning, as it was possible that an unknown person was already inside the house. In March, the front door was unlocked, and therefore we entered the house via the front door. Thus, for our own safety, we stayed outside until we could verify that it was clear. However, I did get some photos of the living room through the window:
Since our visit, there was some new graffiti, as the blue, red, and light gray markings were not there when we came through in March. Additionally, the hearts on the ceiling were new.
Aaron gets a photo of the living room, through the window. The entrance to the basement is to his right.
Not long after this, we left the area immediately around the house in somewhat of a hurry, as Elyse heard footsteps coming from upstairs. We had no idea who might be in the house, and we didn’t want to stick around to find out, either.
As we were leaving the house, we found an abandoned tractor just downhill from the Bauers’ house:
I ran it past Reddit, and as it turns out, this is a Fordson F tractor, manufactured from 1917 to 1928. I never expected that this tractor was as old as it turned out. I wonder if someone could restore this, or if it’s too far gone to restore.
I’m curious about whether it is part of the Bauer property or if it’s unrelated. Considering that there are a few items that boggle the mind on the property, like that refrigerated case and the phone booth, it’s possible that it may have been abandoned independently nearby. I suppose we’ll never know, but in any case, it’s been there long enough to become partially embedded in the ground.
Due to the house’s being occupied by someone, as Elyse spotted a person upstairs from a distance while we were checking out the tractor, I consider it unlikely that we will revisit Scott’s house again any time soon. There are plenty of other abandoned structures around that are worth checking out, though, so we’ll see what we come up with next.
Categories: Baltimore, Elyse, Friends, Howard County, Urban exploration, Vintage business