House & Garden 
condition that he would change his name to 
Ridgely. “ General ” Ridgely, as this sec¬ 
ond master of the house was popularly called, 
was Governor of Maryland from 1815 to 
1818, and it was he who laid out the gardens 
at the south of the house sometime between 
1810 and i 829. 
The approach to “Hampton” along the 
Dulany’s Valley Pike affords a distant view 
of the white cupola and tall chimneys standing 
years after the completion of the building, 
the exterior was covered with stucco. The 
house is a hundred and seventy-five feet 
long by seventy-five feet in its widest part: 
very considerable dimensions for those early 
days. The main building, or central mass, 
—both facades of which are the same — 
contains the living-rooms arranged in two 
high stories and a dormer story. The wings, 
composed of two low stories and an attic, 
THE HOUSE FROM THE SOUTH LAWN 
“ HAMPTON” 
out against a dark background of trees. The 
drive, a mile long, from the turnpike to the 
house lies, fora part of the way, within a lane 
of cherry trees, maple, oak and ailanthus 
beyond which are fields of wheat, corn and 
clover. On passing a marble gateway, a park 
is entered ; and after several turns of the road, 
one comes suddenly upon the west end of 
the house. It is built of rubble masonry of a 
composite limestone obtained on the place, 
apparently without much difficulty, for all 
the exterior walls are two and a half feet 
thick and the interior ones two feet. Several 
are connected with the central building by a 
one-story passage, and they contain the 
offices. i bis disposition of mass and plan 
is typical of Colonial architecture in Mary¬ 
land where it received its highest develop¬ 
ment, at “ Whitehall,” near Annapolis, in 
1753; at “Hampton” in 1783; at “Home- 
wood,” on the outskirts of Baltimore, in 
1804; and in several town houses at Annap¬ 
olis : the Harwood, Brice and Paca houses 
all built about [770. 
Inside, the rooms are arranged with the 
simplicity that is characteristic of Colonial 
43 
