Read the article in the Baltimore Examiner about the Holly Tour!
Do you have an eye towards creative decorating, renovation or restoration?
Do you love history?
Have you always wanted to know what's behind all of those incredible doors and windows in Mount Vernon?
Then you don't want to miss the annual Holly Tour!
The Holly Tour in the historic Mount Vernon Cultural District of Baltimore is one of the most creative, fascinating, and elegant tours in the country. The neighborhood's best and most creative residences, churches, and selected commercial spaces are decorated for the holidays and opened for visitors just once a year to raise funds for the support and maintenance of the Mount Vernon Parks, one of America's greatest urban park environments and a National Historic Landmark.
The 2008 Holly Tour featured 13 unique properties, including the majestic Monumental Life Insurance Building in the northern part of the Mount Vernon neighborhood. Highlights of the tour included Empire-style residences built in the 1800s, one of which houses a collection of replica jewelry worn by the Duchess of Windsor in the 1930s. The Duchess, formerly the Baltimorean Wallace Warfield Simpson, lived on Biddle Street for several years during her romance with the Prince of Wales.
The 2008 Holly Tour included the First Annual Window Walk. Merchants, retailers and restaurateurs from the Mount Vernon Cultural District, historic Charles Street and Midtown competed for the best decorated window display.
History
of the Holly Tour
The
Holly Tour was conceived in 1966 as a way to call attention
to Baltimore homes and churches at a time when Baltimore residents
were fleeing to the suburbs. The holiday tour quickly became
a community ritual as anticipated as the annual Flower Mart.
The tour continued until 1985 and then went on hiatus until
2002, at which time Mount Vernon residents rallied to bring
it back.