Southern Anne Arundel County Tour
Saturday, May 10, 2025
The Southern Anne Arundel County Tour 2025 occurs on Saturday, May 10, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., rain or shine. This special event offers access to exclusive properties open only on the day of the tour.
Online tickets are available for $41.75, which includes a $1.75 processing fee.
Children under ten years old are not permitted, and all attendees must purchase a full-price ticket. Pets are not allowed.
Please begin your tour at The Woodlawn History Center at 647 Contees Wharf Road, Edgewater 21037.
Lunch Option
A delicious box lunch prepared by St. Thomas Parish, complete with a drink and dessert, will be available for pickup at the Captain Avery Museum at 1418 E. West Shady Side Road in Shady Side, Maryland. Lunches will be offered between 11:00 AM and 2:30 PM. The cost is $16.00 per person, and preorders can be placed using the link.
With its farms and fetching waterfront vistas, southern Anne Arundel County, the focus of the 2025 Tour, is quite unlike the county’s populous locales in the north. How did the county get its name? Anne Arundel was Baroness Baltimore, daughter of an established English family and wife of Cecil Calvert, who became the first Proprietor of Maryland in the 1630s. Anne and Cecil were, unmistakably, Maryland’s first power couple. Their county was formally established in 1650, divided into political units called hundreds and later into parishes when the Anglican Church became the official religion. Quakers, too, were early settlers; one of the early tour stops was the pride of a Quaker sea captain. The pilgrimage demonstrates early American architectural styles, some more than 300 years old. One home might make you recall a famous film. Other stops give evidence that open spaces and expansive wooded terrain can yet be found in a county with an international airport. Tour-goers can see up close how homes and businesses in southern Anne Arundel protects lands and the shoreline. The Shady Side Peninsula, site of several stops, once was known as “The Swamp.” The lands are more threatened by rising waters than any other community in the county, which has 7,000 miles of shoreline, a recent study concluded. The tour highlights efforts by landowners to replace natural systems lost with development, roads and shoreline armoring. In southern Anne Arundel, people are learning that bioswales, rain gardens and marsh restoration can limit erosion and flooding impacts while buffering land against the impacts of storms, rising tides and saltwater intrusion.
Woodlawn House was built in 1735 for William Sellman. General Jonathan Sellman Jr. (1753–1810), who grew up in Woodlawn House, served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution and endured the hardship at Valley Forge. General George Washington later presented Sellman with a sword and praise for “courage and gallant conduct.” The center part of the house dates to 1735. The three-story wing on the left was added in 1841,replacing one half of the building. The wing on the right was added in 1979 and replaced wooden additions built in the1800s. The house is known as a “telescope house” because with its smaller wings the structure resembles an outstretched telescope. In 2020, the Smithsonian rehabilitated Woodlawn House and transformed it into the Woodlawn History Center. The center offers in-depth history on its buildings and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Woodlawn House is the oldest building in the Smithsonian collection that remains in its original location.
Tourgoers may begin the tour at the Woodlawn History Center, 647 Contees Wharf Road, Edgewater 21037
​The Captain Avery Museum will benefit from the proceeds of the tour with a project of significant value to our southern Anne Arundel community: a combination floating and stationary pier. The museum has committed to enhancing water access in the Shady Side community. Our existing, timber-supported pier is an integral part of our cultural and maritime history of our eponymous museum, built by an oysterman during the Civil War. Due to tides and fluctuating West River water levels and storms, our pier doesn’t always meet the needs of boaters, particularly canoeists and kayakers. A more flexible dock system deploying air-tight pontoons anchored in place would enable expansion less intrusive to shore line and sediment than adding more permanent timbers. This would include ADA compliant access and a learning pier for educational classes and hands-on environmental studies. Museum visitors and underserved boaters in the community undoubtedly would view this new connection to storied waters with great satisfaction. This would additionally provide access to the museum by surrounding community members as well as Annapolis and Baltimore area boaters.
Two homes which have been in one family for generations will be the next two stops. The two properties operate together as on farm. Both houses are brick, one being built in 1743 with a later large addition and the other is also brick, built in the 1820s. Both homes retain considerable woodwork from the period of construction. The homes are surrounded by beautiful and pastures and gardens.
A contemporary waterside family home, built in 2017, will delight visitors with it's wonderfully designed landscape and pool as well as the many details involved in the exterior design of the house. A walk through the mature gardens with a view out to the water will bring a sense of calm to visitors.​
The next three homes began life as a humble waterman's home, a summer cottage and a 1935 home. All have been updated and are now enjoyable waterside residences renovated and updated for modern living.
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We move on to a property which was for over 150 years a working farm and the site of the first school for African American children in the area, built in 1899. A new home was constructed in 2021 which maintains the charm of the farm setting. A historic barn and the schoolhouse have been retained and the property looks out over the water.
The next stop is a house originally built by a Quaker mariner in 1704. When it was built it was the largest structure in the county, being two stories with a large center hall. It is constructed of brick, the south walls laid in Flemish bond while the other three are laid in common bond. In the interior is a lovely walnut staircase which divides at the landing, providing access to all bedrooms. The exterior is dominated by four large chimneys built into the end walls of the house.​
Finally, visitors will find themselves at the Inn at Tacaro Estate, named for the original owners, Taylor and Caroline Chewning. Enjoy the large, 13,280 square foot mansion and extensive grounds. The property was converted in recent years from a private home to a bed and breakfast and wedding event facility.
