The historic stone mansion in Bethesda known as the Baltzley Castle is back on the market.
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage announced the listing Friday.
The five-bedroom, five-and-a-half bathroom home on a Mohican Drive property overlooking the Potomac River is being offered for $4,449,000.
The home is one of the most distinctive in Bethesda and brings plenty of history.
In 1888, twin brothers Edward and Edwin Baltzley used money from Edwin’s invention of a splatterless eggbeater to buy 500 acres of land on Conduit Road—the road that today is MacArthur Boulevard.
The brothers hoped to capitalize on the popularity of new suburban communities cropping up immediately around Washington, D.C., to build a “Rhineland on the Potomac” for the wealthy and upper-class.
They built Baltzley Castle between 1888 and 1890 on a bluff in what is today the Mohican Hills neighborhood. Financial problems forced them to leave. The castle served as an illegal speakeasy during Prohibition. It changed hands a few times after that, but gradually fell into disrepair.
It wasn’t until luxury homebuilder Ross McNair bought the home in 2010 that it underwent a significant renovation.
A 15-month project brought a new red slate-tile roof to a glass-enclosed circular porch with marble flooring. It took stonemasons eight months to restore the castle’s distinctive granite blocks.
The home now includes a more modern kitchen, complete with a Thermador professional-grade gas range and oven, two refrigerators and dishwashers, granite countertops and new wood cabinetry. All of the bathrooms have been redesigned as well, according to Coldwell Banker.
All photos via Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
