Ambition in brick: the William Brown House, 1758-1785

Abstract

The William Brown House, a two story, all header bond brick structure, was an extraordinary building for its time and place. The house was built between 1758 and 1764 in the tobacco region of Anne Arundel County, Maryland by a cabinetmaker William Brown. This study concentrates on William Brown the builder and first tenant of the house, exploring his original architectural message and what the concrete form of the building tells about him and the patterns at work in shaping his choices. It is the aim of this paper to combine the analysis of information actually contained in the physical structure of the building with the analysis of primary documentary evidence and a wide variety of secondary sources to examine the implications of the William Brown House as a specific, concrete, embodiment of a number of cultural options expressed through architecture.