Small Baltimore developers strive to be next Struever Bros.

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), May 26, 2006 by Jen DeGregorio

In a tiny second-floor office on The Avenue in Baltimore's Hampden neighborhood, two young men are working to secure a future as the next big name in city development, one house at a time.

Prescott Gaylord and Brad Rogers began their company, Baltimore Landmark Homes, in 2002 after spending years on the paper-pushing side of development. Among other jobs, Gaylord helped run an environmental consulting firm aimed at Fortune 1,000 companies while Rogers worked for 1,000 Friends of Maryland, a group that pushes for smart-growth policy.

The two met in 2000 through their wives, who both teach at the Park School of Baltimore. Gaylord and Rogers found common ground in their desire for a healthier planet. Both thought that actually developing properties was the best way to get those changes started.

Instead of standing on the sidelines, we realized that we can do more by being good, green, smart developers, said Gaylord.

One of the reasons we became developers, while developers often have negative reputations among community groups, is that it's the visionary developers who are really in a position to change the face of the city for the better, Rogers said.

The two went into business as Baltimore Landmark Homes, beginning small by rehabilitating a Baltimore home using practical green elements. Rather than install standard synthetic insulation, they used recycled cellulose, which Gaylord said looks like wood but does not rot as quickly. Learning as they went along, they tried to reuse materials whenever possible, such as refinishing old floors instead of putting down new ones.

After the pair completed 10 houses, they knew they wanted to take things further than single-unit rehabs. They formed a development discipline, which shunned sprawl in favor of dense urban growth and practical green design whenever possible.

Baltimore Landmark then broke into separate entities, one aimed at development and the other at construction. Gaylord and Rogers also formed a residential brokerage called City Life Realty. The companies operate in the same building in Hampden.

We're a for-profit company with a social mission, Gaylord said.

We want to destroy the myth that if you want green you have to pay more, he said. If you come to us with farmland you just bought and you want us to build a home on it, we won't do it.

The brokerage also has a mission: to draw new residents to Baltimore's lesser known neighborhoods.

So far, City Life has sold several homes in neighborhoods such as Lauraville in northeast Baltimore and Pigtown in southwest Baltimore, Gaylord said.

The ultimate dream is for Baltimore Landmark Homes to become a household brand in Baltimore, the way the names Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse or The Cordish Co. immediately conjure images of their signature projects, the National Bohemian brewery redevelopment and Power Plant Live entertainment complex, respectively.

I love the Struever Bros.'s story, Gaylord said.

Indeed, Struever's history is not so different from Baltimore Landmark Homes'. The company began in the early 1970s, with partners C. William Bill Struever, Fred Struever and Cobber Eccles heading out with their tool boxes to rehabilitate individual homes and small commercial buildings.

They do a lot of things that we're looking to do, Gaylord said of Struever Bros. Redevelopment, by its nature, is green development.

It's not just Struever Bros., but many others that I could mention that are able to combine vision with capacity, Rogers said.

Beginnings

New construction has been somewhat harder to come by for Baltimore Landmark. The company continues to rehab homes throughout Baltimore and is in the planning stages of various in-fill developments that could eventually yield dozens of new houses.

The company has so far completed one single-family house in the Green Spring Trails area of Woodberry, a northeast Baltimore neighborhood.

Owner Ben Forstenzer said he loves his home, which Baltimore Landmark built mostly from the ground up after his first home burned in a fire. When he chose to employ Baltimore Landmark, he was betting on a relatively unknown builder.

I knew that part of what I was doing was giving them a chance to do something they hadn't done, said Forstenzer, who moved into his new house in February. I just knew that they were green builders and nice guys.

Forstenzer's house includes elements such as a special paneling that sandwiches compressed wheat stalks between plywood as insulation and strength for the house walls. Bamboo, a highly renewable resource, was used instead of traditional wood flooring. To save energy, skylights and open spaces keep the house full of natural light and a special system conserves heated water.

That house won Baltimore Landmark praise from Forstenzer's neighbors in Woodberry, who had already been working with the company on a proposal it was designing for a tract of city-owned land in the neighborhood.

Last year, the Baltimore Department of Housing and Community Development asked developers to submit plans for the land, preferably to create a mix of market-rate and affordable homes that employ green-building techniques.