The Baltimore Centennial Homes Program Honors Residences That Stay in the Family

In 1913, when Anna C. and Henry A. Schenk purchased a lot from the C. Mueller Building Company on Fait Avenue in what was then Baltimore County’s Highlandtown, they looked forward to having a new home, for themselves and their future children. The Schenks couldn’t have imagined that, 112 years later, family members would continue to live in that very same dwelling, in an area of Baltimore City now known as Brewers Hill.

In July of 1976, Mary Lou Hennigan, née Schenk, purchased the home from her two aunts and an uncle, who had inherited the residence when their mother—Hennigan’s grandmother, Anna—died. (Hennigan’s mother, Mary Matthew, had predeceased her own mother, Anna, so the remaining children became the owners.)

“The C. Mueller Building Company was developing consecutive blocks of two-story brick rowhouses in the area—noted for their Classical Revival style. The building company built high-quality, affordable homes for working-class immigrant communities at that time. Each house had a stylish stained-glass transom above the door and the first-floor window,” reads Hennigan, 76, from paperwork left by her grandparents.

“I grew up here, and my children grew up here,” she says. “It’s just a nice place.”

Hennigan, who has spent nearly all her life in the home, found out about the Baltimore Centennial Homes Program when she was talking with a neighbor.

“We were talking about the age of the houses, and she mentioned the program,” says Hennigan, who raised two sons in the home and still lives there with her husband, John. “I saw that a neighbor up the street from us had a plaque saying their home was a Centennial one, and I just thought it was a neat thing to do.”

After Hennigan interviewed with someone at Baltimore Heritage, which runs the program, and provided the necessary documents, her home was accepted. Members from the organization hung the plaque on the outside of her home in 2018. It reads: Centennial Home. Schenk, Matthew, and Hennigan family. Brewers Hill. Baltimore City since 1913. Designated 2018.

Hennigan couldn’t be prouder. “It makes me feel good. I like the neighborhood,” she says. “I think it was nice that the house stayed in the family, because not many do.”

LITTLE OLD LADIES
According to Johns Hopkins (yes, that’s his real name), the executive director of Baltimore Heritage, the Baltimore Centennial Homes Program started because of good old-fashioned door-knocking.

When Jim Kraft was running for the District 1 city council seat in the early 2000s, he was going door-to-door in neighborhoods such as Brewers Hill, Butchers Hill, Fells Point, Canton, and others in the district. Hopkins says the two would often cross paths.

“After he got elected, he said to me, ‘When I was running, I would go knocking on doors and talk to people. A lot of those who answered were proverbial little old ladies who would tell me that their families had been in their house for 100 years. Is there any way we can say thank-you to them? Their families have been part of the anchors of their neighborhoods for literally a century.’”

Hopkins thought Kraft’s idea sounded cool. But he admits he had no idea whether a program existed nationally that honored families in this way.

The Baltimore Heritage staff began digging and discovered that a number of states have what are called Centennial Farm Programs—they acknowledge farms that have been in the same family for more than 100 years—but they couldn’t find anything equivalent being done in a city.

“We decided to take that concept and apply it to an urban neighborhood. That’s how the Baltimore Centennial Homes Program began,” says Hopkins. “One of Baltimore’s greatest assets is its historic communities. It’s not only the buildings, but really the people. That strong sense of neighborhood connection for generations is something that sets Baltimore apart, and our program is one way to help boost that.”

THE FIRST HONOREE
John Pente of Little Italy was the owner of the first home honored by the program. Along with being a Little Italy fixture, Pente was famous for allowing neighborhood organizers to put a film projector in his third-floor bedroom window, which started the Annual Little Italy Film Festival, held on Friday nights in the summer in the private parking lot of Da Mimmo restaurant.

It was especially fitting that Pente was given the Centennial plaque during his own 100th birthday year—and right before one of the movies.

Although the program now has 18 homes that have been recognized, Pente was special because he is, to date, the only person who actually lived in the honored home for 100 years—barring the time he served in the military. Pente passed away in July 2010.

So far, the home that is known to be owned the longest by the same family is that owned by the Crane and Buccheri families in Hollins Market. The house was purchased by Walter J. and Mary Crane in 1891, so that’s 134 years.

In the past, Baltimore Heritage would install a plaque on the family’s house. During COVID, the price skyrocketed from $200 to $700, which is out of the nonprofit’s price range. Hopkins says they give certificates, and if the family purchases the plaque, they will install it.

“We’d love to have a sponsor so that we can buy them for people again,” says Hopkins wistfully.

GET WITH THE PROGRAM
The rules for the Baltimore Centennial Homes Program are pretty simple. Your house needs to have been owned and lived in continuously for at least 100 years by people within the same family. You don’t get credit for owning the home and renting it to someone else—unless that person is a relative.

Eligible family members to own the home include children, siblings, nephews and nieces, cousins, stepchildren, adopted children, and spouses.

“We think of the word family as a big idea. If you’re family, you’re family,” Hopkins says.

But you also have to prove it. Baltimore Heritage will interview people applying, but the owner also needs to submit documentation that is proof of ownership, including deeds, tax records, copies of sales documents, census data, and other documents that show both ownership as well as dates of ownership.

CONTINUING A LEGACY
On Hollen Road in the Bellona-Gittings neighborhood, the last name Bauer has been well-known for more than 100 years. In 1897, Fred C. Bauer founded the Fred C. Bauer Florist. He purchased a home at 188 Hollen Road in 1911, while he operated his business and raised a family. In 1927, his son and daughter-in-law, William F. and Edyth C. Bauer, took over ownership of the home until 1986, when their granddaughter, Linda, became the owner.

At one point, five of the 10 homes on Hollen Road were owned by members of the Bauer family. Thelma Bauer and her nephew, Frederick Sisson, ran the flower shop until they closed the business when Bauer was 90.

Upon Linda’s death in 2022, she left the home to her niece, Lindsey Bauer, 46, and her wife, Marannie Rawls-Philippe, 43. The couple was so thrilled to keep the tradition going that, in June of 2024, they uprooted their lives and moved to Baltimore from New Haven, Connecticut, where they had been living for 14 years, with their two sons, Lucien, 11, and Etienne, 6. Their home became part of the Baltimore Centennial Homes Program in December of that year.

Bauer first found out about the program through a next-door neighbor, who had heard about it on WYPR. Her dad, William Bauer III, passed away in 2011, two years before her eldest son was born. Although he was raised in Towson, he often came back to the neighborhood to visit his grandparents and other relatives.

“My kids don’t know their grandfather on the Bauer side. So, part of the reason my wife and I decided to move here is because of that legacy. This is where my great-grandparents lived for 60 years of their lives, and it was where my grandfather grew up,” she says. “It pains me that my children didn’t get to know my dad. But at least they can play in the same places where he did as a child growing up.”

And it’s even more than that. “I want my children to know the importance of this home,” says Bauer. “Even though our ancestors are no longer with us, the legacy still lives on.”