Johns Hopkins’ childhood home in Gambrills scheduled for auction next month
The Gambrills childhood home of famed investor and philanthropist Johns Hopkins is scheduled for auction next month amid a troubled nonprofit’s attempt to restore the property and turn it into a tavern and arboretum.
An auction date of Aug. 15 has been posted by Alex Cooper Auctioneers of Towson, despite protestations by the nonprofit’s executive director, Bob Brown.
The auction of the home, which dates to the 1780s, is scheduled for 9:50 a.m. on the steps of the Anne Arundel Circuit Court. It was purchased by The Johns Hopkins House Inc. in March 2022, Brown said, and has been in foreclosure court since January.
The home is on a roughly 13-acre plantation known as Whites Hall and is the 1795 birthplace of Hopkins, who lived there until he was 17, according to the Maryland Historical Trust. It remained in the family until 1910.
In May 2022, then-Gov. Larry Hogan earmarked $243,000 in his final budget for Brown’s nonprofit to buy the house. The former owners of the property agreed to lend the nonprofit $168,000 for the purchase, with the nonprofit promising to pay back the loan with the state money.
Before the release of the state funds, the Department of General Services needed to authenticate the nonprofit with the state Department of Assessments and Taxation and review the property’s ownership and location, then submit the spending request to the Board of Public Works. If the board approved the project, the Department of General Services was to do another, more detailed review before the nonprofit got the money.
The nonprofit, however, hasn’t provided the state government with the documentation required to start the process, said Manny Welsh, the public works board executive for Gov. Wes Moore, who succeeded Hogan in January. The documentation was to include affidavits, insurance certificates and tax filings, he said.
Brown said he was aware he needed to complete the forms, but was out of the state for several months to deal with family issues. Upon his return, Brown expressed concern that liability insurance on the home could be affected by the age and condition of its utilities.
Additionally, the nonprofit, founded in 2017, hadn’t filed annual tax documents to the IRS until May, according to ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer. Failure to file was due to “my own personal lapse” Brown said in 2021.
Because the nonprofit doesn’t have the state funds, it has been unable to pay back its loan to the previous owner, 2173 Hopkins Road LLC. The company’s attorneys, William Heyman and Saul Abrams, declined to comment due to ongoing litigation.
“This is getting paid,” Brown said Wednesday. “The money’s there.”
According to the sale documents, however, Brown’s nonprofit fell behind in mortgage payments and defaulted on the loan, leading to the company putting the home up for auction.
A new purchaser will need to make an initial deposit of $40,000, according to Alex Cooper Auctioneers.
“It can’t happen and it won’t happen,” Brown said of the auction. “Too many people have worked too hard and been involved in this project to have it come to an end this way.”
Part of Brown’s devotion to the house comes from a personal connection. His maternal grandfather, M.M. Stewart, lived in the house. His mother, Margaret Stewart, was born there in 1920, he told Baltimore Sun Media in 2018.
Brown’s nonprofit has faced fundraising hurdles and struggled to advance the project of turning the house into an inn, public park and benefactor of scholarships for minority students to honor those people who were enslaved at Whites Hall.
Brown said he received no notification that the home was to be auctioned until a reporter contacted him.
“How could they not have informed us of this?” Brown said. “This is unbelievable.”
While he received notice that a complaint to foreclose was filed in February, Brown said he understood the foreclosure to be on hold after he spoke with representatives from the Circuit Court and the limited liability company and explained the situation with the outstanding state funds.
The resident agent for Brown’s nonprofit, Danielle Vallone, who served as its legal representative with the state, resigned in September for personal reasons, according to her resignation letter. The lack of a resident agent means the nonprofit is designated as “not in good standing” with state Department of Assessments and Taxation. Vallone could not be reached for comment.
Brown said he planned to file a motion in Circuit Court to postpone the foreclosure, adding he’s optimistic things will go his way.
“I’m just utterly, utterly shocked,” he said.