ROBIN HOOD & POKER GAMES

Arden On The Severn came to be during the romantic period of the early 1900s in the days when people were delighting in a light opera which depicted the adventures of Robin Hood and his men in Sherwood Forest. The name "Arden" is the name of an ancient forest in England which may have been the inspiration for the naming of the proposed settlement. Arden was surveyed in 1911 by J. Spence Howard, whose family was one of the early families of Anne Arundel County. As a result of the survey all roads were laid out to follow the contour of gullies.

The settlement of Arden contained about 600 acres and extended from Whitneys Landing Drive following the Severn River to Plum Creek. The original Arden did not include Sections 4 and 5, and Mr. Henry Keidel owned most of Section 2. One of the four men who planned the settlement, a man named Strauss, lived in a home located at the end of what is now Evergreen Road. (Records show around 1940, Mr. Strauss sold the home to Mr. Taylor, president of the Friendly Insurance Company of Baltimore.)

The original deeds as set out in 1913 had two restrictive covenants: (1) No one occupying land in Arden On The Severn might purchase, convey, possess, manufacture, distribute or consume spirituous beverages and (2) whoever bought a piece of land covenanted not to sell it to "a celestial". In those days, China was called the Celestial Kingdom, so the covenant attempted to keep Asian people from buying. After an influx of Chinese immigrants and workers in the late 1800s, America had taken restrictive measures as racism spread.

For many years only two lots in this anti-liquorous, anti-celestial area had houses on them. These homes are located on the Severn River at the end of Omar Drive. These houses were built by two doctors from the University of Maryland, who were very close friends and who decided to live as neighbors in Arden. Each was so enthusiastic about his home that he had the builder take a picture every afternoon and send it up to him in Baltimore. When the houses were almost completed, however, the two doctors became so infuriated with each other during a poker game that they refused to live in the same neighborhood. Each man decided to sell his dream house, and neither informed the other of his decision. The two houses were sold almost simultaneously and each man regretted the sale.

Original Sunrise Beach Sales Office

SUNRISE BEACH TO ARDEN

(Some data was gathered independently, and some was taken from the Arden On The Severn Directory, 1995.)

Before the 1920s, the Crownsville area was mostly farmland, but over time four large communities were developed: Epping Forest, Sherwood Forest, Herald Harbor, and Arden on the Severn.

Beach Shores, Inc. bought the surrounding land around the two developed lots that existed, cut roads, surveyed lots, and started an advertising campaign for a new beach community called Sunrise Beach. They envisioned a community of summer cottages, with perhaps a few year-round residents. Many early residents built summer cottages (most of which were later converted for full-time occupancy) but a handful built year-round homes to begin with.

The sale of lots in Sunrise Beach began in 1951 with covenants requiring mandatory fees for beach and park maintenance (land owned by Beach Shores, Inc.), as well as racial restrictions only allowing the sale of these lots to the Caucasian race, and other (now illegal) covenants.

By 1955, approximately 30 families were living in the five sections of Sunrise Beach. All of the streets were gravel topped, and to go from one house to another, and you needed a flashlight to see the way as no street lights existed and utilities were being brought into the area as it was being developed.

Earliest Dated Sales Advertisement