Bolton Hill resident and amateur historian Kevin Cross started pulling at a string of newspaper searches, old books and other historical archives earlier this year, poking around for neighborhood history. As with sweaters, the unraveling string became longer. The result in 2025 will be a new, open section of the BHCA website devoted to stories conveying the history of Bolton Hill, its early residents and builders, parks and architecture and more.
This preview is excerpted from a lengthy entry on the origins and ups and downs of the Beethoven Apartments building facing Park Avenue south of McMechen Street. To would-be tenants and the undiscerning neighbor, it’s just a nice old apartment building where rents for a 2-BR apartment now approach $1700. But on the grounds and inside the walls of Beethoven is an intriguing tale of wealth, architectural majesty, political maneuvering and repeated tragedy.
It begins with a wealthy landowner and local judge named William Frick, born in Baltimore of German origins in 1790. His holdings stretched north through today’s Bolton Hill, but in the early 19th century it was open country, sometimes known as Frick’s Inheritance but in public records referred to as the Beethoven tract.
His son, Frank Frick, dabbled in the sugar and coffee trade centered on Baltimore’s harbor, but his real passion was travel. After touring Europe, India, North Africa and the Orient, he brought back observations of those cultures and threw himself into promoting music, art and the development of parks in his hometown. He helped develop in 1894 what became the Lyric music hall, where the Baltimore Symphony was born in 1916.
Inspired by buildings in London, Frank Frick decided to build a terrace holding 11 stately houses, one of the nation’s first buildings in what was considered Second Empire Style, rather like Baltimore’s city hall. Detractors called it Frick’s Folly. These attached mansions formed a single structure facing new Park Avenue, where Frank’s brother, George, lived at 1516 Park Ave. George owned a horse-drawn streetcar company with routes from the downtown area where today’s UMMC Medical Center sits, to Waverly, passing through our Bolton Hill.
While Beethoven Terrace was, on any map, a country location, it thus was efficiently connected to downtown. Soon the residences were occupied by the swell people of the era, wealthy lovers of art, music and letters. The double-width home on the north end of the terrace facing McMechen St. housed the Baltimore Female College, founded in 1849 as the first in the state to educate women.
In 1874 the first of four fires to affect Beethoven happened the day after Christmas. According to the Baltimore Sun, “Fire blazed from the windows and the Mansard roofs cracked and burned like timberwood.” Elegant furniture and valuable silverware were thrown out the windows, as was art and bedding. The house occupied by writer-historian J.D. McCabe was “completely destroyed.” The city council investigated claims that the water supply was insufficient to stop the fire.
Fast forward to 1954, when a shrewd real estate developer, Morton Sarubin, acquired the southmost units and by 1964 owned the entire property, which he renamed The Beethoven Apartments. Alas, fire struck again that year, with considerable damage to the building and nearby houses. Sarubin made a play to buy the old Friends School building and the Belvedere Hotel, but his financing collapsed. He tried to open a restaurant at street level of the to-be-restored Beethoven but was stymied by neighborhood opposition.
Then another fire, the largest, occurred on Feb. 15, 1978 and started by a 10-year-old boy with a candle, according to the Sun. A Baltimore police officer was trapped and died in the fire. The north wing of the building was uninhabitable, but Sarubin promised to rebuild. “This was my baby,” he said, although he later concluded he couldn’t make the numbers work and sought permission to tear The Beethoven down. Even then, the city’s Commission on Historic and Architectural Preservation (CHAP) was powerful. It denied a permit for demolition. Litigation followed.
In July 1978, with the legal issues unresolved, a fourth fire hit the building. Seeing CHAP and the old Mt. Royal Improvement Association (now BHCA) as his enemies, Sarubin said he would leave the empty building unrestored, “with three damaged walls standing for the rest of history,” as in Rome. Sarubin wanted to build a new, 6-story building with a garage and restaurant. Meanwhile the judge in the litigation directed the city to clean up the damaged property and send Sarubin a bill.
City Council President Walter Orlinsky, who lived nearby, came to Sarubin’s defense and urged CHAP to permit an economically viable restoration. CHAP refused. Mayor William Donald Schaefer said the City could not afford to get involved. In 1979, a different circuit court judge overruled CHAP. CHAP member and Bolton Hill resident Richard Roszel urged the City to use federal block grant funds to rebuild The Beethoven. In a cloud of secrecy, the City bought the buildings for $1 million and asked potential developers to offer proposals. Schaefer endorsed a plan to create 50 luxury condominiums on the site, but that fell through.
In 1981 the city made a $5.6 million loan to a new developer, who then bought The Beethoven for $6.9 million from the city. The plan was for 60 apartments to be rented starting at $550 per month. In 1997 the city finally transferred full ownership to the developers.
Today, Landmark Property Management runs the place. It is home to students, government employees and a mix of other solid tenants. Today’s Beethoven, according to Landmark, “is the perfect location for any young professional, artist or student.”
For still more of Kevin Cross’s research on The Beethoven, check out this link.
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