6501 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital and Gatehouse

Statement of Significant:

The Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Towson, Maryland, has been for over a century one of the leading private hospitals in the country devoted to the care and treatment of the mentally ill.

The architecture of the two principal buildings of the hospital, built from 1862 to 1891 and known originally as the Western Division and the Eastern Division, were designed by the nationally prominent architect Calbert Vaux who also designed most of the buildings in Central Park, New York. These two buildings are virtual mirror images of each other and together with their twin towers present an impressive aspect over 800 feet long. The dramatic appearance of these Norman Revival buildings is, however, secondary to their functional design which marked a milestone in psychiatric planning by separating patients according to the nature of their illness, and attempting to create for each category a pleasant, self-contained, non-institutional environment.

The Gatehouse for the hospital was designed in 1860 by Baltimore architects Thomas and James M. Dixon. This quaint Tudor Revival double cottage, located at the Charles Street Avenue entrance to the hospital, was the first building to be built and has become familiar to generations of passersby. It is used by the hospital as their symbol and as a result they requested National Historic Landmark evaluation of it alone. However, familiarity cannot be substituted for architectural excellence and the Gatehouse, for all its charm, is in no way exceptional.