• Earle Havens
  (co-author)
• Johns Hopkins University
  ,
  2017
• Purchase Online

Evergreen―the long-time home of the Garrett family in north Baltimore―offers a preeminent example of antebellum-American Italianate architecture. It also houses a remarkably diverse collection of over 50,000 objects, including paintings, furniture, sculpture, ceramics, and rare books. Acquired by two generations of the prominent Garrett family, self-described “collectors by instinct and by education,” the assemblage of fine and decorative arts is remarkable in scope and inventiveness. Now part of the Johns Hopkins University, the mansion endures as a rare visual encyclopedia, representative of nearly all major architectural and design movements indicative of America’s transition from a predominantly agrarian society to a world industrial power.

This meticulously researched and handsomely illustrated volume honors the distinct and richly layered collections that characterize Evergreen. The book opens with a history of the philanthropic family itself, which helped run the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and develop many of the Monument City’s most important civic and cultural institutions. Tracing their evolution as collectors and philanthropists, the book charts the family’s artistic tastes and aesthetic sensibilities from the Gilded Age to the World Wars while also describing the physical landscape and architecture of Evergreen.