CCBC Hilton Mansion Will Undergo Renovations

The historic Hilton mansion that predates the current grounds of is about to undergo a multi-million dollar renovation that will restore both the inside and outside of this roughly 175-year-old home.

The mansion, which is used now mostly for administrative offices, will be transformed into the Center for Global Education. CCBC received a $500,000 Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for Humanities to help establish the center.

In addition to the grant, the college must raise $1 million in matching funds to pay for the renovations, which will turn the second floor into the center’s home.

The total cost of the renovation of the entire building is estimated at $5.6 million, with the remainder of the money come from the college’s budget. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2013 or early 2014.

College faculty have been working on establishing a center for about two years, lead by the efforts of Professor Tara Ebersole.  The idea behind the center is to create a physical space that allows students to have meetings, lectures and events on global programs.

Currently the college has started offering classes that have a global perspective, such as a math class that incorporates how math is used in different cultures and an anatomy class where students study a list of global diseases.

Under the management of the center, students will also be able to take more global-centered classes in the curriculum as part of a global distinction program. College officials are following a national trend in education, where colleges are working to prepare students for a global workforce.

While colleges in the area like Goucher College require all of its students to study abroad, CCBC faculty wanted to find a way to create a global learning environment for its students on the campus.

What the center will add is a place for the college to host events on more global topics. The upstairs great rooms will hold events and one of the rooms in the mansion will be turned into a global research room that is open for students to use. There will also be a lounge that college officials expect to be a gathering place for international students on campus.

After the renovations are complete, the college will also be able to rent out the space to the greater community for events. A catering kitchen will be installed on the lower level that will serve food at those events.

College officials also hope that with the renovations, more people in the community will be able to visit the building. While early college classes were held at the Hilton mansion, the building has housed administrative offices for at least 35 years. CCBC’s first lecture halls were built in the 1970s.

“A lot of people know it’s here, but they haven’t been inside,” said Ken Westary, CCBC’s vice president of institutional advancement.

“Hopefully with this rehab, they will be able to come in. It will be a tremendous space for the Catonsville community.”

Ebersole knows mansion well, as her father Louis Eisenhauer was one of the original faculty members of CCBC.

She remembers running through the halls as a child to visit her dad. For more than four decades, however, there haven’t been many reasons for students to visit the building.

“We own it, it’s our responsibility to maintain it,” she said, adding that she is glad the college is making the commitment to restore the building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. 

While still well-kept inside, the exterior of the building is showing its age, with chipped paint and old shutters. Many of the hallways on the third and fourth floor are too narrow and the rooms too small to use for anything other than offices.

The current property was believed to be built between 1828 and 1835 by Dr. Lennox Brickhead and was later purchased by the Glenn family. The property, which was in decline, was purchased in 1917 by Baltimorean George Knapp as a summer home.

During his ownership, the property was completely renovated and expanded to its current floor plan. The mansion remained in the Knapp family until it was purchased in 1962 by the Baltimore County Board of Education for the purpose of establishing the community college.

The mansion was placed on the Baltimore County Landmarks List in 1980.