15533 Second Street
Open on Sunday: 10am to 5pm
In 1810 Quaker Mahlon Janney (1731-1812), son of Waterford’s founder Amos Janney, sold an unimproved acre to Joseph Talbott for $100. By 1823, when Mary Ann Taylor (born 1797) bought a portion of the property from John Palmer, the $1,050 purchase price indicates that a house had been built.Taylor owned it until her death in 1876. Quakers Franklin and Mary “Molly” Dutton Steer owned the house from 1882 until 1891. Molly’s pastel rendering of the Phillips Farm and Short Hill to the west survives as an iconic image of the Landmark. The view remains essentially unchanged.
Some 60+ years after the Steers’ residence, the MacCallum family from New York repaired the then-dilapidated home in the 1950s, retaining much of its original detail and several unusual features: a ceiling trap door through which children were passed from the kitchen to a sleeping loft and a working kitchen well. The MacCallums added the wing to the south along the street. Beneath the stucco is brick on a stone foundation. The original section has a typical hall-and-parlor floor plan. The MacCallums named the property Catoctin Creek and operated a boys’ school and camp here.
In the 1990s, authors Tony Horwitz and wife Geraldine Brooks (each the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize) added a plain porch and opened the back room to the gardens. In defining the kitchen area, they kept the character of an early 19th century house, acquiring flooring from a barn in Frederick, Maryland, ceiling beams from Rectortown, Virginia, and period crofter’s furniture (cupboard, dresser and workbench) from Limerick, Ireland In 2002 an outbuilding constructed by furniture maker Courtney Fair was added in consultation with the National Trust.
Catoctin Creek is open through the courtesy of owner Sharyn Franck.