Quarry Lake is a

manmade lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from t ...

in the

Pikesville Pikesville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. Pikesville is just northwest of the Baltimore city limits. It is the northwestern suburb closest to Baltimore. The population was 30,764 at the 2010 cen ...

area of

Baltimore County, Maryland Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland. The county is part of the Central Maryland region of the state. Baltimore County partly surrounds but does not include the independent cit ...

. Originally a

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

quarry, it is now one of the deepest lakes in the state. The lake is surrounded by Quarry Lake at Greenspring, a mixed residential development and commercial development that includes single-family homes, condominiums, shops, and office buildings.

History

The lake itself is a flooded

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

that dates back to 1877. It is located off

Greenspring Avenue Greenspring Avenue is a road in Baltimore, Maryland and its northwestern suburbs. At one time, Greenspring Avenue was Maryland Route 519 from Maryland Route 128, Worthington Road to Dover Road (Reisterstown), Dover Road, but the road has since b ...

, between

Old Court Road Old Court Road is a state- and county-maintained highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. Including the adjacent road in Howard County, Maryland, Howard County known as Woodstock Road, the highway runs from Maryland Route 99 (MD 99) near Woodstoc ...

and Smith Avenue. The quarry was likely originally run by the Boyle family, and later transferred to the McMahon family. The McMahon Quarry was purchased by the Arundel Corporation in 1937, and became known as the Greenspring Quarry. The quarry operated to produce crushed stone from a

gneiss Gneiss (pronounced ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. This rock is formed under p ...

ic phase of the

Cockeysville Marble The Cockeysville Marble is a Precambrian, Cambrian, or Ordovician marble formation in Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard Counties, Maryland. It is described as a predominantly Dolomite (rock), metadolomite, calc-schist, and calcite marble ...

, though other minerals were also found at the site. The Arundel Corporation of Baltimore survives as a subsidiary of

Vulcan Materials Company Vulcan Materials Company () is an American company based in Birmingham, Alabama. It is principally engaged in the production, distribution and sale of construction materials. Vulcan is the largest producer of construction materials, primarily gra ...

. In 1999, an agreement was reached to allow a new mixed-use development to be constructed on the property. Construction began in 2005, and the first businesses opened starting in 2006, which now include medical office space of

LifeBridge Health LifeBridge Health is a nonprofit healthcare corporation that was formed in 1998 and currently operates several medical institutions in and around Baltimore, Maryland. These institutions include Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, Grace Medical Center ( ...

Walgreens Walgreens is an American pharmacy store chain. It is the second largest in the United States, behind CVS Pharmacy. As of March 2025, the company operated more than 8,700 stores in the U.S. Walgreens has been the subject of a number of lawsuit ...

, and

The Fresh Market The Fresh Market, Inc. is an American chain of supermarkets based in Greensboro, North Carolina. History The Fresh Market was founded by Ray and Beverly Berry on March 5, 1982, in Greensboro, North Carolina. The first store was opened in the f ...

. The development also features 83 single-family homes and 500 condos. The center of the development features is lake, which is deep, one of the deepest lakes in the state of Maryland. File:Quarry Lake 1956 1VKW000020006.jpg, The quarry in 1956 File:Quarry Lake 1998 N10NAPPW10587118.jpg, The quarry in 1998, a few years before flooding File:Quarry Lake Maryland July 2022.jpg, Oblique view in July 2022

References

{{authority control Reservoirs in Maryland Baltimore County, Maryland, landmarks Pikesville, Maryland Bodies of water of Baltimore County, Maryland Quarries in the United States