Auburn House is a historic home located on the grounds of Towson University in Towson,

Baltimore County Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland and is part of the Baltimore metropolitan area. Baltimore County (which partially surrounds, though does not include, the independent City ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. It was built in 1790 by

Charles Ridgely III Captain Charles Ridgely III (1733–1790) was a colonial Maryland planter and ironmonger. Biography Ridgely was born in Maryland Province in 1733 to Colonel Charles Ridgely II (1702-1772), ("Charles the Merchant") and Rachel Howard. With his f ...

and stayed in the family until it became part of the

Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital The Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, known to many simply as Sheppard Pratt, is a psychiatric hospital located in Towson, a northern suburb of Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1853, it is one of the oldest private psychiatric hospitals in the nati ...

property in 1944. Towson University (then Towson State College) acquired it in 1971. The building currently serves as the home of the executive offices of the Department of Athletics. The National Register listing shows it having been built in 1849, but it also says that Rebecca Dorsey Ridgely, wife of Charles Ridgely III, lived there from 1791 to 1812. The listing calls it

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but a ...

, but 1791 is well before the Greek Revival period in the United States. Towson University calls it "an important example of Italianate–Federal architecture". It is a rectangular three story stone structure faced with scored

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

. The front is three bays, with ground floor windows, six over nine, the full height of the front door. The next story is also six over nine, but not as tall, and the top floor windows are the same size as the upper sash of the floor below. The interior is elegant, including acanthus pattern cornices, Italian marble mantels, graceful chandeliers, and a carved mahogany balustrade. The two story addition on the southwest side was built in the 1920s. Auburn House was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

on March 17, 1975, reference number 75000869.

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* Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maryland Houses in Baltimore County, Maryland Greek Revival houses in Maryland Houses completed in 1790 National Register of Historic Places in Baltimore County, Maryland 1790 establishments in Maryland Towson University {{BaltimoreCountyMD-NRHP-stub