Family Traditions New and Old at Hampton National Historic Site

Outstanding Merit as an Architectural Monument

Hampton Mansion was the largest private home in America when it was completed in 1790 by Captain Charles Ridgely. It was built in modern day Towson, Maryland on the 10,000 acres that constituted the Northampton land grant, purchased by the Captain’s father, Colonel Charles Ridgely, in 1745. Col. Ridgely founded a profitable ironworks in the area of today’s Liberty Reservoir, and the Captain expanded operations on the land to include a gristmill, orchard, and stone quarry.

The Captain barely had a chance to take in his architectural accomplishment, as he died later the same year that the house was completed.

Having no children of his own, he willed most of the land grant, including the mansion, to his sister’s son on the condition that his nephew change the word order of his names. Thus “Charles Ridgely Carnan” legally became “Charles Carnan Ridgely” and a legacy of six generations of Ridgelys owned and managed the house and its properties until 1948, when then master John Ridgely Jr. and his son John Ridgley III moved into his “Farm House”, still on the remaining property, where his ancestors had called home some 300 years prior.

The house was gifted to the Avalon Foundation, and Hampton Mansion along with the remaining 43 acres of the once vast Northampton estate was designated by the Secretary of the Interior as a “National Historic Site” in later that same year.

It was the first ever National Park Service unit to be selected based on its historical significance and the house’s “outstanding merit as an architectural monument“.

Tours of the mansion opened to the public in 1949, and the Farm House was eventually added to the NPS ownership upon John Jr.’s death.

Upon its opening to the public, the mansion’s kitchen was converted into a colonial style Tea Room. This unique dining room was what made me fall in love with Hampton Mansion.

My father, who instilled upon me a great interest and passion for history, culture, and human development – especially America’s Colonial era history – worked as the VP of a nearby Fortune 500 company. Throughout the 80s, he would bring the company’s most important clients to lunch at this unique little restaurant. And when I moved with my mother back to Maryland in my teens, he would bring me here too.

Our annual tradition was to visit Hampton every year on Christmas Eve. We’d get a late formal tea lunch of Hampton Crab Imperial with a complimentary glass of sherry and then take the final tour of the house as the sun was setting and streaming through the holly decorations posted to the windows of the Parlor.

Our server was a sweet Southern gentleman with a thick accent and a kind voice named Michael. Over the years, the three of us aged together. Each Christmas, Michael would welcome us into the Tea Room and we’d catch up on the stories of our growing families.

I think of Michael often to this day.

In 1999, major renovations were done to further preserve the house, and the Tea Room was permanently closed. The Park Service felt that the risk of fire or rodent damage that could occur with an active restaurant in the house was too risky. The Tea Room was converted back to a display of the historical kitchen, Michael moved on to some other job, and my most cherished tradition with my father came to an end.

Or, at least, that tradition was transformed.

By now Hampton National Historic Site was becoming a much more popular NPS site thanks to wonderful work of the mansion’s curator and Park Rangers, who conducted extensive research projects, endeavoring to add interactive educational programing that brought the house and the lives of those who lived within it to life.

An annual Holidays at Hampton open house weekend in mid December replaced my Christmas Eve tours. Guests are now invited to walk from room to room during the open house, touring at their own pace and learning about the house from the docents in each room. A harpist and carolers play early American music in the Great Hall. Down in the Farm House, children play old time games and learn how to make traditional Christmas ornaments while adults hear lectures about the slaves and indentured servants whose painstaking work on the land and the house was the true backbone of the Ridgely fortune.

Dad and I attended the open house every year, bringing a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream and two small sherry glasses with us. After we finished enjoying the festivities for the day, we’d walk to the road, outside of the historic entrance gate, and raise a toast to Michael.

Dad’s final visit to Hampton included my baby Leif. Not yet a year old, I carried Leif through the magnificent Great Hall of the mansion, moving room to room behind my Dad. By now, we both knew enough of the history to give the tours ourselves! Dad liked to stump the Rangers with obscure historical questions that showed off his love for and knowledge of the mansion and its family.

He bought Leif a Hampton Christmas tree ornament and wrote a beautiful dedication that we keep in the box with it and read to Leif every year. “This is your first of many Hampton ornaments,” he wrote in the dedication to Leif. It is one of Leif’s most cherished items.

After Dad’s passing, Leif and I are sure to carry on the tradition, and now Aras is old enough to join too. One year, I even got to serve as a docent in the master bedroom during Holidays at Hampton! They had assigned two of us volunteers to the room, each for two hours of time, but I knew so much about the room already that the other volunteer allowed me to stay the entire day!

Nowadays, our familial love for this fascinating historical site is no longer relegated only to Christmas time. Throughout the years, the kids and I have enjoyed numerous spring and summertime programs as well.

Aras was the youngest visitor ever to tour the mansion, when I brought him along to a lecture on the “Painting that saved Hampton” when he was just two weeks old. And another time, I enjoyed pretending Hampton was my own house by sipping a glass of wine on the back porch with my mother and friends following an art reception opening in the Orangery.

So of course when we learned about this “History of Chocolate” lecture, it only seemed right that we’d take Leif’s newly acquired Junior Ranger Passport booklet and make our beloved Hampton National Historic Site the very first Junior Ranger that he “officially” completed. What could be better than our favorite historical site and chocolate!

Chocolate: America’s Heritage