Evolutions of Strawberry Hill

Evolutions of Strawberry Hill. United States Naval Academy. Historical records of colonial Annapolis show that Richard Spriggs, an important 18th Century Annapolitan, had a house built on Strawberry Hill in 1780. By 1796 Spriggs had leased the house to Henri Stier, an investment banker from Antwerp, and his family. Stier’s third child, Rosalie, married George Calvert, a scion of Lord Baltimore, and founder of what became the University of Maryland. From 1803 to 1823 the residence on Strawberry Hill served as the Anne Arundel County Almshouse. The purpose of the almshouse was to give shelter and work to the county’s poor.

The colonial house was gone when the Navy purchased the property, 67 acres, on July 15, 1868, and the adjoining 46 acres of Prospect Hill farm the following May as part of expansion efforts after the Civil War. A Naval Academy Cemetery was developed on the bluff closest to the creek, while the remaining property continued as a farm and orchard, providing fresh produce to the Midshipmen’s mess. The cemetery has become the final resting place of Navy, Marine Corps, and Army veterans from the War of 18 12 to the present. This hallowed ground is the final resting place to over 6,000 men, women, and children, with ranks from blacksmith to Fleet Admiral. Navy family housing on the site began in 1903 with three yellow brick homes to serve the Marine Corps officers assigned to the Marine Corps Barracks, now Halligan Hall. In 1919 the barracks became the home of the Navy Post-Graduate School. Between 1922-24 a series of small bungalows were erected along Badger Road. In 1939, fourteen red brick apartment buildings, each consisting of six residential units were built.

The U.S. Naval Academy Hospital was built on adjacent high ground in 1907-11. It was designed by the Beaux Arts architect Ernest Flagg (1857-1947), who also designed many of the buildings on the lower yard of the Academy.

The hospital was expanded with major additions in 1942 and 1958. The expansion was designed by architects William Karcher and Livingston Smith whose designs were a simple interpretation of the original Neo-classical style. The hospital function was discontinued in 1974, but the buildings continue to service the Academy and retired community with medical clinics and supporting offices.

In 1942, an adjacent greenhouse was built about 100 feet northwest of this plaza to supply cut flowers for the hospital, chapel and Superintendent’s quarters. Records from May 1955 show that the greenhouse was producing a supply of flowers and other plants that outnumbered many of the local nurseries within the Baltimore/Washington area. Over the years, the need for a functioning greenhouse decreased and it was demolished in 2009.