WHITEHALL

Built for Governor Horatio Sharpe, Whitehall is an outstanding example of Palladian architecture and one of America’s finest colonial houses. Its five-part-plan was inspired by Andrea Palladio’s design for a Roman Country House that appeared in Robert Morris’s Select Architecture, published in London in 1757. The exceptionally fine interiors, the quality of which had never been witnessed in Maryland before, are attributed to English immigrant craftsmen John Rawlings and William Buckland, who undertook the plasterwork and woodwork, respectively. In true Palladian form, Whitehall is a lofty single-story house elevated over a raised basement with distinctive river and carriage fronts. The former incorporates the first residential use of a full temple portico in America.

Whitehall began with the central block to accommodate a grand hall and flanking withdrawing rooms. The hall has a coved ceiling that rises twenty feet, and the entire room is ornamented with neoclassical and Rococo details, including window surrounds with lateral consoles, doorways with full entablatures, and festooned plasterwork. The flanking hyphened wings were not erected until 1769, when Whitehall converted from retreat to fulltime residence. The hyphens appear as closed arcaded passageways leading to pyramidal-roofed wings. Whitehall faces the Severn River, easily accessible via boat from the state capital in Annapolis.