House Porn: Inside Hampton Estate, Baltimore's Largest Plantation & The Largest House in America (in 1790)

demetria lucas January 15, 2016

Most people have the idea that you have to wander around the Deep South to see an actual plantation. Ok. Let me speak for myself. I thought that. And I once made a point to drive an hour from New Orleans to see Plantation Row in Edgard, Louisiana. Another time, I drove 4.5 hours from Atlanta to Low Country, South Carolina to see Magnolia Plantation.

Turns out, I could have driven 45 minutes from where I grew up and BOOM: Hampton Estate. In its heyday the owners, the Ridgelys, had 25k acres of Baltimore's finest land— for the locals, that includes Lutherville, White Marsh, and parts of Baltimore City— and 300+ enslaved men and women, white and black, to work their grounds.

Who knew?

House Porn: Inside Richmond's Agecroft Hall

demetria lucas January 12, 2016

Agecroft Hall was my first stop in Richmond.

I do a LOT of house tours. It took awhile, but I've passed the newly convert stage where I have to see every single house available, and have become more discriminatory. I’ve figured out the time period that I enjoy most, roughly plantation houses of the one percent and the Gilded Age, 1890-1920 or so.

Agecroft Hall falls way outside the parameters. It’s an 500 year old English Tudor mansion that originally resided in Lancashire, England. So how did it in end up in Virginia? That’s what I was there to find out.

The Biltmore Estate, as seen from the Italian Gardens.

HOuse Porn: Inside Biltmore Estate: Once The World's Largest Bachelor Pad

demetria lucas January 11, 2016

Visiting the Biltmore Estate has been on my bucket list for awhile. I have a thing for Gilded Age Mansions specifically, and home tours in general. Each time I visit one, the guide or someone on the tour asks, “have you been to Biltmore?”

That’s why I decided to go.

It’s the largest private residence in the U.S., sitting on 125,000 acres of land. The actual house, a French Renaissance chateau (it looks like a church) is 175k square feet with 250 rooms, 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces.