Walking into the Evergreen Museum is like walking up to something out of a Disney movie, with its long driveway, extensive foliage and immense size.
A fine example of Gilded Age architecture (mid-1800s), an era marked by immense, gaudy displays of wealth, the house stands on a small hill on the Loyola University Maryland campus. It is surrounded by woods, and has ample cover from the street.
The only hint of its existence is a set of gates signaling 4545 N. Charles Street and "Evergreen House."
Green signs indicating an entrance lead one around the entire house to the actual museum entrance.
The house seems to go on forever, only seeming to give way to the garden, complete with statues and deliberately trimmed hedges.
Once owned by the Garrett family, the house was left to Hopkins, which runs it as a museum. Peabody, Garrett and Hopkins were all contemporaries of one another, as well as acquaintances.
The house opened to the public as a museum almost 20 years ago and is set up to look as it did when the owner lived there: It is meant to look lived in. No detail is overlooked, down to the open lighter on a desk and teacup on a side-table.
The Garretts were an affluent and prominent Baltimore Family.
Over the course of two generations, the house was added onto and transformed. The last Garrett to live in the house, John Work Garrett and his wife Alice Warder Garrett, were world travelers, as John belonged to the Diplomatic Corps and served as ambassador to Italy. He was also the founder of the B&O Railroad.
Ironically, adorning a table in one of the numerous sitting rooms is a picture of Mussolini autographed by the dictator himself with a personal note to the Garrett family.
The original house consisted of 12 rooms. But by the time two generations of Garretts had passed through, it had expanded to 48. And no expense was spared.
Houses are not made like Evergreen anymore: fireplaces in every room, wood staircases with carved griffins as end-caps and walls of floor to ceiling bookcases.
Nearly every lamp, from those hanging to those standing, are of the Tiffany variety. And adorning the walls are tapestries and paintings from various artists.
Alice, John's wife, was an art connoisseur and had the walls covered in works from Leon Bakst, among various other artists. She had an international reputation for her status as a patroness of the arts.
Strewn about the house are several portraits of Alice, from life-sized oil paintings to miniature busts.
But the most spectacular parts of the house are the numerous libraries.
When one wasn't enough, the Garretts expanded the house to accommodate their collection. And this is where the house takes on the Disney air.
The library containing several of the rare manuscripts is floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall books. A sliding latter even sits in the corner so as to help reach books on the highest shelf. Atop a table was a bouquet of roses, reminiscent of the single enchanted rose of "Beauty and the Best" fame.
In this library, there is a section in which several of the books are dated before the 1500s.
The room is climate controlled to slow the deterioration of the books. And recently, each of the books was taken for cleaning and inspection to keep them preserved.
The library at the back of the house lends a perfect view of the back garden, which, too, is reminiscent of scenes from Beauty and the Beast.
At first, the house looks cluttered with the 50,000 plus belongings of the Garretts, which were collected as a result of their world travels.
Among the most interesting collections are John's charms worn by Japanese men in which they kept personal affects (as kimonos had no pockets). A room of the house is filled with more than 200 of these.
Likely the most superfluous of the rooms is the 23 carat gold bathroom. Everything in the bathroom, from the sink to the toilet, is gilded in 23-carat gold. The only thing not covered in the precious metal are the floor and walls, which are a roman mosaic tile and the door, made of brass.
Every aspect of the house leaves a clue to the Garretts' personalities. More than just opulent in its décor, the house is warm. The walls in the main corridors and elsewhere are a deep red, as are most of the tapestries.
And of course there is no room in which there is not at least one piece of art.
Over the arches in one of the many libraries, various murals on the walls depict places where John worked as a diplomat, ranging from the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to Paris, to Washington, DC.
The love the Garrets bore for performance is also obvious. Alice had a theatre renovated to seat 200 plus people so she could showcase her talents, from singing to dancing spectacles.
One can even see the outlines of hidden compartments used to hide bootlegged alcohol during prohibition.
Besides functioning as a museum, Evergreen House displays work of various local artists and holds several exhibitions.
There are even opportunities for artists to work and rent space in the house.
Exhibitions change often. Beginning in December the museum will present the exhibition "Evergreen as Muse," which will run until the end of January.
The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Hour long tours leave every hour. Admission is free to Hopkins students (with ID) and $6 for adults.
Apart from the house, the 26 acres of grounds and gardens are also open to the public at those times.
