A Historical Inn-vestigation

Report on UMD’s Oldest Building Examines Its Past and Future

Over its 214-year history, the Rossborough Inn has taken on many identities besides a resting place for weary travelers: a Civil War encampment site for Confederate soldiers, a laundry, a photo studio, a weather station, a museum, a library, a restaurant and office space.

What role the campus’s oldest building should play next is the subject of a new report by graduate students in the Historic Preservation Program.

Commissioned by Facilities Management in advance of Metro’s proposed Purple Line crossing through campus, the report investigated the Rossborough’s past and imagines its future as a social hub for the campus community

“We were essentially tasked with doing a full study of the history of the building to understand its significance, how it’s changed and to think in terms of how this building might be best utilized in light of all the development” on campus, says Dennis Pogue, adjunct associate professor in the Historic Preservation Program.

Land speculator Richard Ross constructed the building in 1803 for people following a dusty road between Baltimore and Washington. A later owner, George Calvert, left it to his son, Charles Benedict Calvert, who founded the Maryland Agricultural College, predecessor of UMD, in 1856.

Over the following decades, the Rossborough housed everything from the president to a chemistry lab. In 1939, the federal Works Progress Administration restored the building according to its original plat map, and it briefly served as a house museum. In its longest iteration, the Rossborough hosted a restaurant and faculty/staff club for nearly 70 years.

Around 2006, budget cuts—combined with the opening of Adele’s in the Stamp Student Union—shuttered the club, and the Rossborough became office space, currently for the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

“Right now, students don’t have a reason to come here, and the only time they do is before they’re even students,” says Melissa Butler M.H.P. ’17. She and her classmates hope that the proposed placement of the light-rail Purple Line along Rossborough Drive might jump-start the building’s revitalization.

The students suggest that the Rossborough Inn could serve as exhibit space, classrooms, a residence, a café or some combination of the four.

“Before McKeldin Mall really became the social center that it is today, this part of campus was where students would come and hang out,” says Camille Westmont M.H.P. ’17. “So we’re hoping that the new developments will help invigorate the Rossborough.”