The Clifton Mansion, ‘Last Remnant’ of Johns Hopkins U. Founder, Deteriorates

Johns Hopkins used to watch ships in Baltimore’s harbor from the six-story tower of the Clifton Mansion. (Photo by Shelby Silvernell)

The Clifton Mansion, the 19th-century Italianate home of the philanthropist and university founder Johns Hopkins, has fallen into disrepair and is going through a slow-motion renovation that may not even be keeping up with the pace of rot, according to an article in Urbanite, a Baltimore magazine. Preservationists and others in Baltimore estimate that a complete renovation of the house would cost between $6-million and $20-million.

It turns out that the mansion and the land around it might have been the home of the Johns Hopkins University, had circumstances been different. “Upon his death in 1873, Hopkins left the university trustees $3.5-million and his 500-acre Clifton estate in what was then unincorporated countryside,” writes Greg Hanscom. “Historical accounts suggest that Hopkins assumed the university would be located at Clifton, according to university archivist Jim Stimpert.” But the trustees turned instead to an area west of Clifton.

The story has it that they made the switch because better housing and transportation were available at the other site. But Chris Wilson, a carpenter for group called Civic Works who has been working on the house for a decade, guesses the decision had more to do with Clifton’s proximity to the city’s brewing district and watering holes unbecoming to its highbrow students. The university sold the mansion to the city long ago.

University engineers have done pro bono work on the renovation of the mansion’s six-story tower, from which Hopkins watched ships in the harbor. But the university is mainly tending to two other historical properties it owns, Homewood House and Evergreen House.

This has irked people who are trying to save the mansion. “I find it really amazing that neither the university or the med school has shown any interest in preserving the last remnant of their founder’s lifetime,” says Mr. Wilson.