Month: January 2022

AROUND THE PARK AGAIN by Sharon Lee Tegler

An image of the picturesque blue cottage at 8 Evergreen Road as part of a photo essay by Severna Park native Lauren Garber shot following a recent snowstorm and shared on Facebook evoked a touch of nostalgia for those of us who saw it. She kindly allowed us to use it as our opening photo. We recalled that its exterior and interior appearance changed several times over the past decade and a half. But it actually has a much longer history as part of a family home.

According to local historian Scott Jay, the little cottage across from Severna Park Elementary School was built in the early 1950’s by businessman Howard Wheeler as an annex to his home. It was first used as Wheeler’s office and later as a combination laundry room and playroom for his children Howard, Janice and Judy.

The first alteration to the cottage, which had fallen into disuse, came in 2007 when owners Lauren and Kevin Russell and Larry Strasser chose to use it as a showroom for Russell & Mackenna’s coastal style furniture.

Starting with a tall, skinny bookcase, designer Lauren Russell, the company’s founder and creative director, began building furniture for her Round Bay home in a one-car garage with help from husband Kevin in 2002. Her pieces were admired by friends and neighbors who quickly became clients, one of whom ordered half a dozen of Russel’s vanities along with an $18,000 deposit check which the couple used for seed money to start their company. Lauren’s father Larry Strasser, a former CEO, joined the firm as president and created a business plan.

The company quickly progressed from the garage to a warehouse space and, subsequently to a plant and storage facility in Jessup. On reaching sales of a quarter of a million dollars a year, they partnered with a wood furniture building plant in Dover, Delaware.

Meantime, Lauren Russell found the perfect place for a showroom – what she described as “a shed in Olde Severna Park opposite the elementary school”. It was owned by Quayle & Company Designs by that time. Lauren Russel and Hal Quayle transformed it into the quaint cottage space seen below. In the same year, Sarah Wright joined the team to manage the flagship store and they moved in.

Russell’s beautiful little gem of a showroom, with its brilliantly colored glass balls and vases, an array of chic accessories and colorful coastal styled furniture, drew customers from far and near. Both Russell and Wright remembered that a number of visitors to the location said they had visited the cottage as children when it was a playroom, crossing the street after school to visit the Wheeler children.

Already doing a robust online sales business and having partnered with a design center called Urban County, the company continued growing by leaps and bounds. The “coastal look” they helped popularize, with its sea-meets-land-toned furnishings, drew the attention of national publications including the Wall Street Journal. The team even painted the exterior of their cottage showroom the company’s signature periwinkle blue.

But more changes were on the way. By April of 2011, Russell & MacKenna had acquired the intellectual property of Maine Cottage, taking on its prestigious name. As Maine Cottage, their business continued to expand.

As 2011 came to a close, the team realized they needed even more space and moved their flagship store from the cottage to a larger location in Annapolis. D. Wayne Speight of Speight Studio Architects briefly considered moving in at that point but found it was just too small and, instead, relocated to 540 Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard.

On New Years Eve of 2011, the Paper Trousseau moved from their storefront location at 554 Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard to the little blue cottage. A few months earlier, Paper Trousseau’s owner Tammi Molavi initiated a collaboration with fellow artists Christie Sappington, who owned Christie Sappington Designs, and Cink Deveas, who owned Cink Art, to operate together under the banner “The Studios at Paper Trousseau” in the new location.
  

Molavi’s decision to move from her original B&A Boulevard storefront grew out of a need to eliminate her shop’s retail sales operation and focus on event and wedding invitations and fine stationary. Eliminating retail meant less space was needed. So, when Maine Cottage relocated to Annapolis, the three women jumped at the chance to acquire the cottage.

 Still owned by Quayle & Company Designs, which also owned the building behind it, the cottage had lots of windows, the interior was well lit and it provided needed workspace. Event invitations were Paper Trousseau’s primary thrust with Molavi an expert wedding consultant, Deveas a popular sketch artist and graphic designer and artist Sappington a store design/merchandising specialist who also developed a line of decorative wedding accessories.

Paper Trousseau occupied the location for a little over nine months before the trio was ready to move on. Molavi believes that, for a brief period, the cottage was used by interior design firm Barefoot Dwelling which Mary Quayle was a partner in. The company is currently located in Annapolis.

In 2013, Sew Beautiful owner Margaret Blunt moved her design firm into the quaint blue cottage that is currently owned by David Orso who uses the building behind it (formerly owned by Quayle & Company Designs) as headquarters for the David Orso Team.

Sew Beautiful has been there ever since. Blunt made the cottage truly her own by painting it Tiffany blue and adding a bright orange door as seen in the opening photograph. She also gave the interior of the cottage an initial facelift and subsequent updates.

Blunt has actually been designing rooms for Severna Park residents for 21 years, providing beautifully made custom window treatments, cushions, pillows and bedding, upholstery, slip covers, area rugs and more. She began Sew Beautiful in a workroom in her home and expanded it to a leading design firm in the greater Annapolis area.

Her staff – designers Ronnie Harmon and Sarah Kraus, project manager Amy Publicover, and installer Greg Brinsley – are expert at what they do and excel in giving customers what they are looking for be it rescuing a beloved couch or chair or designing a new room. They all like the way the cottage’s light and bright interior looks today.

“We just celebrated our 20th anniversary last year,” Blunt said. “Today we are a full interior design firm. Our main focus remains fabricating custom window treatments, bedding, cushions and other soft furnishings for homeowners in the greater Annapolis area. However, we’re able to provide so much more.”

While Blunt is staying put for the forseeable future, we can report that Tammi Molavi moved on to create j.lolly, a table setting design business, with partner Michelle Hickman.

Lauren Russell and partner Sarah Wright briefly sold part of Maine Cottage’s equity to Balsam Brands. But they bought the business back in 2019. Russell has moved to Vero Beach, Florida and runs the creative end of the business from there while Sarah runs operations from Maine Cottage’s offices in West Annapolis. Luckily, the partners shifted primarily to online sales for consumers and the trade in 2019 which turned out to be fortunate when COVID-19 hit. Maine Cottage fans can currently see its full array of products by visiting Maine Cottage® Official Site | Where Color Lives!

AROUND THE PARK AGAIN By Sharon Lee Tegler

Consumers have been shocked by empty shelves in local supermarkets recently but imagine the impact local retailers and restaurateurs are feeling as the products they depend on for their customers are in short supply while prices soar.

Challenges that began two years ago with Maryland’s first COVID-19 cases resulted in shipping delays at ports, trucking and air transportation problems and labor shortages across all businesses. Particularly hard hit are food service businesses, from restaurants to coffee shops, fast food establishments, bakeries and caterers.

April’s Table owner, April Cunningham, described the difficulties most small independent business owners are having when asked if supply chain problems are affecting her catering business.

“Yes, we are experiencing supply problems – whether it be specific to certain brands or items, distribution, or quality. It’s all coming into play right now,” Cunningham said. “Even paper products are difficult and hard to come by.  The price hikes make it even worse because what we can get our hands on is exponentially more expensive than either what we’ve quoted, or what our clientele have grown accustomed to.  I’m certain any food business is having similar trouble.”

We sampled other food related businesses, checking in with Greg Keating, managing partner for the 206 Restaurant Group that owns Park Tavern and JB’s at Park Plaza.

“It’s been challenging for us to get certain items, especially proteins, for quite some time,” Keating said. “But now, the problems we’re facing have more to do with operating supplies – for example carryout containers. The demand for to-go items has been high because of COVID carryout ordering and third-party ordering. That demand dealt a hard hit to the supply chain, meaning we’ve had to adapt to changing materials over time. We’ve been able to weather the problem fairly well but it’s been an on-again, off again challenge for us.”

Asked if inflationary prices for certain items are an issue, he agreed that they are.

“We’ve definitely seen an increase in prices when it comes to proteins, particularly for things like crabmeat and beef,” he said. “We refresh our menus accordingly. We’ve had to take crab off the Park Tavern menu because of the dramatic price rise for crabmeat. It went from $18 per pound two years ago for jumbo lump crabmeat to $49 a pound thirty days ago.”

Keating notes that, all up and down the supply chain, the labor shortages he’s seeing for restaurants are just as challenging for the growers and food manufacturers. Shortages of materials required to grow or produce products are slowing progress. However, he does feel things have eased slightly in the last two months.

For Shipley’s Choice couple Clint and Elizabeth Jones, who own Sizzle Shack and Beach Tables, the going has not been easy.

“Supply chain and inflationary prices have been a major disruption to both our businesses,” Clint Jones said. “For Beach Tables, materials that we need can’t be sourced and limit our production. When we can get our supplies, prices are up at least 20%.”

He added that, for Sizzle Shack, there is no consistency in what he can find in stock for food or packaging.

“Our business relies heavily on crab meat which was out of stock for some time,” he said. “Now that we can get crabmeat, it has more than doubled in price. We try to stay close to our original price but this situation has required us to raise our prices across the board.

While Sizzle Shack has an array of great menu items from pulled pork, Italian meatballs and Chicken Parm to sliders, Clint’s signature crab cakes are a customer favorite. They’re an item he feels he can’t do without.

Sizzle Shack takes online orders only with meal delivery service at www.thesizzleshack.com. You check out both businesses on Facebook and Instagram.

Non-food retailers have had to adjust and adapt to their own set of challenges. Heather Summers, owner of Park Home with husband Scott, said supply chain issues for stores like theirs have been happening for two years now.

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“You won’t find any businesses who haven’t faced delays getting merchandise. Everything takes longer,” Summers said. “Likewise, price increases have been seen across every industry depending on the product and how it’s being transported.”

Thanks to the Summers’ practice of ordering beyond what they need for any given season, Park Home is fully stocked with furnishings and accessories geared to the coastal look.

Switching gears, we spoke with Mike McNealy, the owner of Severna Park Automotive which has had its own share of supply chain headaches.

“There have been off-and-on disruptions, some of which were strange,” McNealy said. “At one time we couldn’t get a particular aerosol chemical called Brake Clean that’s used to clean bake parts because there was a can shortage. We also had to switch oil filter suppliers because the company we normally used was totally out of the line of filters we needed. Now we’re having trouble getting synthetic oils from some vendors. It’s especially hard to find 0W20. For quite a while it was hard to find window washer solvent.”

“The pricing for everything, across the board, has gone through the roof,” he added. ” The price of gas is high and the cost of most products has doubled. It’s definitely impacted us and we’ve had to adjust our prices. We can’t just absorb the costs without passing some of it along to the consumer.”

AROUND THE PARK AGAIN by Sharon Lee Tegler

Ever expanding its community outreach, the Good Neighbors Group founded by executive director Julie Shay in 2006 accomplished a total of 14 projects during 2021 in spite of many challenges.

Among other things, GNG volunteers collected hundreds of coats for families, collected and mailed Halloween candy to deployed soldiers, donated over 150 units of blood to Luminis/Anne Arundel Medical Center, provided Thanksgiving dinners for 200 families, and collected over 20,500 items for food pantries during their 2021 S(o)UPER BOWL FOOD DRIVE.

Deeply dedicated to environmental projects the group also cleared invasive vines from Beachwood Park and the Baltimore Annapolis Trail, planted native gardens in public spaces (including one behind Park Salon as seen in the opening photo), and picked up litter from local roadways and waterways.

Shay said GNG is grateful for the volunteers and donors who made so many projects possible during 2021 in spite of problems associated with the COVID pandemic. She adds that the group remains inspired and the game is already on for 2022’s most significant event.

“I’m about to send out the flyer for our fifth annual S(o)UPER BOWL FOOD DRIVE which will take place from February 10 through 13 with food delivered on the 13th, ” she said. “Last year’s drive broke all previous records with a total of 44 neighborhoods participating and tripled the amount of food collected.”

She added that GNG will, hopefully, duplicate last year’s donations to four primary organization’s including the Anne Arundel County Food Bank, SPAN, Inc. on Benfield Road, ACAN (Asbury Church Assistance Network) on Asbury Drive and My Brother’s Pantry in Arnold. The group would also like to expand the number of neighborhoods participating on the Broadneck Peninsula which currently stands at nine. Mezzanotte will again be participating in the drive as a sponsor.

Over the course of four days, neighborhood captains will volunteer their homes as collection points for donations of food and household items. The items tend to spill across every unoccupied space – from back porches and garages to kitchen counters, dining room tables, living room or bedroom floors. Entire families get involved in the process, with children happy to help out.

Delivery days are quite an endeavor as neighborhood captains load the items into their cars and head for their designated drop off organizations. Last year, Mackenzie Grossman and her younger brother Emerson helped carry packages as their father Jeremiah, neighborhood captain for Olde Severna Park, packed donations into the family SUV, then sat in the middle of it all.

It was quite an accomplishment to deliver almost 21,000 food pantry donations but the neighborhood captains persisted to the delight of the recipient organizations.

Volunteers truly enjoy being involved in all the GNG initiatives.

Kathie Hamlett began volunteering with GNG a few years ago.  She started as a “project” volunteer meaning she would help out when someone was needed for an hour or two for an event or when GNG was looking for donations.  Eventually, her involvement evolved into helping out with the bimonthly Blood Drive during 2021.  Currently, she’s looking forward to helping out with the S(o)UPER BOWL drive as it kicks off.  

“I love supporting GNG because everyone can help in some capacity,” Hamlett said.   “There is a place for everyone, the person who is able to give an hour and the person who is able to give more. I enjoy being a part of a group that is filling existing needs of the community.  GNG offers the opportunity to get involved with my community and give back and meet new friends. One time I was volunteering collecting coats and discovered one of my dear friends was volunteering on the other end delivering the coats that I had helped to collect. It makes me feel good that I am able to help others.”

Hamlett’s and the other volunteers’ help will be needed more than ever this year. According to Shay, several community food drives like Harvest For The Hungry, an annual mail carrier’s drive and a Boy Scouts’ drive that have been instrumental in filling food pantries shelves during the winter months did not happen because of the pandemic.

In addition to continuing with ongoing programs, Shay and GNG board members including Chris Myers are hoping to relaunch their annual Earth Day Festival.

“We’re waiting to see what happens with the schools as we’ve held the festival in the past at Severna Park Middle School or Severna Park High School,” Shay said. “We reserved the date of the last Saturday in April and we’re hoping to hear by the end of the month if we will be able to hold it at one of the schools. If not, we’ll do something different but we are definitely doing some sort of outdoor Earthday celebration.”

GNG is also working on a new effort called “Donations Before Dumpsters” which is aimed at making it easy for people to find homes for items they no longer need instead of sending them to the landfill.

“We need to make it quick and convenient for people to find information and sources. We’re getting the word out to residents in hyper-local circles.” said Shay. “However, we also want to reach realtors and contractors who know of people who are renovating, moving or downsizing.”

Shay’s original idea in forming the Good Neighbors Group was to bring people together. She’d noticed that the more technology we have, the more people feel isolated; the more our neighborhoods are developed and overcrowded, the more people fence themselves off. She foresaw GNG as a perfect antidote through making the effort to unite people in good causes. In doing so, the group has recreated a sense of community.

For information or to volunteer follow Good Neighbors Group on Facebook or at Home – Good Neighbors Group.

Greater Severna Park Council passes motion opposing development of Mt. Misery

We received a tip from Magothy River Association member Karen Royer that the organization’s president Paul Spadaro built the model pictured below to show how steep the slopes are on the hill in Round Bay called Mt. Misery where a developer wants to build two houses.  (Mt. Misery is historically significant in that it was the sight of a Union fortification during the Civil War. The fort was later used as a camp for local Boy Scout Troops.)

The developer was granted a variance to the County code that says nothing can be built in the Critical Area on anything greater than a 15 degree slope.  The slopes on Mt. Misery are 51% on the Severn River side and 33% on the Magothy side, so the variance never should have been granted.  The Greater Severna Park Council just passed a motion that unanimously opposes the plans to build on the Mt Misery hill.  The Magothy River Facebook page has some pictures and Spadaro is going to post a drone video showing the narrow top of the hill and the steep slopes.

For more information on the Magothy River Association, follow them on Facebook or visit Home – Magothy River Association.

AROUND THE PARK AGAIN by Sharon Lee Tegler

Imagine our surprise when, following a New Year weekend with temperatures in the mid 60’s, we woke Monday morning to 10 inches of snow and temperatures dropping into the teens.

Glances out the window confirmed that, for the moment, we were snowed in. Though beautiful, the heavy, wet snow bent tree branches nearly to the ground and the winds were creating drifts. Snowplows were absent from many Severna Park communities and there were scattered power failures. However, neighbors soon popped out of their houses to dig out their cars and clear driveways while their children found the nearest hill to sled down or snowdrift to make snow angels in.

Outdoors, there was damage to deal with in the aftermath of the storm. Everywhere one looked, there were broken branches and fallen trees.

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According to Lou Meyer at The Davey Tree Expert Company, after a snowstorm, cleaning up downed branches can help you evaluate the damage to your trees and help the landscape recover. Branches can be resting on valuable landscape plants and shrubs and putting pressure on them as the snow melts, potentially causing damage.  They are also tripping hazards.  Meyer warns those cleaning up to make sure there are no downed power lines or trees leaning on power lines.

He adds that, when limbs break in snowstorms and leave a splintered stub, it’s an invitation for decay to develop in the tree.

“Trees have a ridge called a ‘branch bark collar’ where a subordinate stem meets a parent stem, for instance where a branch meets the trunk of the tree. Within this ridge there is a group of cells known as the branch defense zone, which activate healing when exposed.  Leaving the splintered stub after the storm prevents these cells from allowing the wound to heal. ”

Branches can easily be pruned but larger limbs would be best removed by a professional from a local garden center or tree service.

Cleanup from the storm remains a work in progress but, most of the time, we’ve remained cozy inside, our thoughts turning to what lies ahead. For gardeners, that means thinking about what we want to plant in our spring flower and vegetable beds. We inventory seeds we have on hand that are still viable and scan paper and virtual seed catalogs for what’s new. We’ll also phone our local garden centers to see when the new seeds will be available.

Anne Arundel County Farm, Lawn & Garden owner Cory Stephens and staff began working on their displays of flower and vegetable seeds on Monday. According to staff member Karen, the new seeds just came in and it’s taking a while to assemble them in the displays according to manufacturer and in alphabetical order. She noted that certain varieties of seeds for things like tomatoes, peppers and carrots that are favored by customers for their hardiness and reliability sell out quickly. Lettuces and cold weather greens sell especially well – particularly kale which AA Farm, Lawn and Garden sells a lot of.

“You can start cold weather crops in the ground in March. However, we sell everything people need to start their plants indoors eight weeks before the last frost,” she said. “We sell seed staring trays and inserts, grow lights and heat mats on which to set the plant trays. It’s wise to start the seeds in an organic growing medium like Espoma.”

Favorite herbs like parsley and basil and vegetable plants like Amaranth started indoors early, will grow like wildfire when transplanted and set outdoors on sunny spring days. Customers can find more information at AA Co. Farm Lawn & Garden (aalawnandgarden.com).

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Popping in at Homestead Gardens Severna Park, we found some seeds already displayed (as seen in the opening photo) but the store was still waiting for the bulk of them to arrive and be put out.

Homestead Perennial Supervisor Alice Milchling said it’s early yet. However, she expects the trend for sustainable gardening that’s been dominant for the past two years to continue. Supply chain issues and inflationary prices for produce of all kinds at the grocery store may create even more new gardeners. Spring garden products and events will shortly be posted on the store’s website at Severna Park Store – Homestead Gardens, Inc.

At Homestead Gardens Davidsonville, the staff was in catch-up mode with a great deal of inventory work and clearing out to do from their extensive exterior and interior holiday displays.

“We have a lot of work still to do and won’t be putting out our garden seed displays until February when it’s time to start the cold crops,” said Homestead gardening expert Dave Kemon.

He noted that the gardening department is happy to advise customers who want to start their seed indoors ahead of time. There is also a lot of information on the Homestead Gardens website about what customers will need, when to start which plants, etc.

Like last year, Kemon expects seeds for some plants to sell out quickly.

“It’s been that way for the last two years. With everything that’s going on in the world, people want to grow their own stuff.” he said. “Taking into consideration inflation and supply chain problems, we think we’ll sell even more seeds and supplies.”

Kemon added that both branches of Homestead Gardens carry a full spectrum of organic and regular seeds including well-known brands like Lake Valley and Renee’s Garden Seeds. Cold crop seeds for lettuces, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and rhubarb, to name a few, can be started inside with a grow light or heat mat and seed-starting soil (a light-weight mixture that plant roots can penetrate through). Homestead also carries plant trays and peat pots.

For information on seeds, plants and spring events visit Homestead Gardens – Garden Supplies, Nursery, and Landscaping.

Starting a few favorite herbs, vegetables or flowers now (like the garlic chives pictured below) will delight gardeners come summer when they will see their efforts amply rewarded.