PRINCE FREDERICK — Residents planning the future of Huntingtown may soon be asked a new question: should part of the town become a historic district?
Calvert County’s historic preservation planner floated the idea to the Planning Commission on Oct. 21 during a presentation on the history of the Huntingtown and Owings town centers. Commission members liked it enough to ask staff to raise it at the public workshops the county will hold as it updates the Huntingtown Town Center Master Plan. Staff agreed to include it.
Nothing was voted on, and no property would be affected unless its owner asks. Every historic district in Calvert has been created at the owner’s request, said Christopher Spirling, a historic preservation planner with the Department of Planning and Zoning.
Two clusters worth saving
Spirling said he sees two historic clusters in Huntingtown.
The first runs along the northern part of Old Town Road. It includes a group of buildings tied to a lumber company and a prominent Calvert building firm of the early 20th century, including a showcase building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a small office and a house. A historic school and farmhouses round out the group.
The second runs west from the intersection of Old Town Road and Hunting Creek Road. It includes an early automotive-era garage, Bowen’s grocery, the American Legion hall, which still hosts the Legion and a dance studio, and several two-story cross-gable farmhouses. Spirling called those farmhouses a diminishing resource in the county, and said a cluster of them in one town is unusual.
Bowen’s does not appear in the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties, he said, but local preservation also weighs what a place means to the community. “Everybody knows where this is,” he said.
Spirling showed a map with two options: one district covering the whole town, or two separate districts for the two clusters. He said the idea came from an owner of a historic district just outside the Huntingtown Town Center who told him he wished something similar could protect the town.
What a designation would mean
A Planning Commission member asked what a historic label would mean for owners. Spirling said the rules cover a building’s exterior appearance. Owners would need approval for changes such as replacing wood siding with vinyl or swapping out windows.
Interiors are not regulated, and the designation does not limit how a property is used beyond what its zoning already allows. New construction is permitted. Spirling said the county’s Historic District Commission recently approved several new-construction permits, and the goal is for additions to fit in without being mistaken for the historic buildings.
There is also a financial benefit. Owners in designated districts can apply for the county’s historic preservation property tax credit for approved exterior work. Spirling said the credit is 25% of the cost, so a $10,000 roof repair would bring a $2,500 credit, and unused credit carries forward for up to five years in total. He noted some historic roof repairs in the county have topped $100,000.
Getting a designation takes time. An owner applies to the Historic District Commission, which makes a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners. The request then goes through work sessions with the commissioners and the Planning Commission, a public hearing and a resolution.
A town that moved
Spirling’s history explained why so many older buildings survive. Huntingtown was created under Maryland’s 1706 Town Act as a tobacco port on Hunting Creek, near what is now the area of Route 4 and Plum Point Road. British forces burned the town during the War of 1812. By the 1860s, maps showed an “Old Town” and a newer Huntingtown, as the community shifted away from the water toward overland roads. No structures from the original town are known to remain.
The present town grew along those roads in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Then, around 1962, the main north-south highway was realigned around the town. Spirling said that left Huntingtown with less new development and less demolition, which is why much of its architecture still dates from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s.
Calvert made Huntingtown and Owings minor town centers in its 1983 comprehensive plan, part of a strategy of steering growth into towns to protect rural land. The Huntingtown master plan and zoning ordinance followed in 1993, said Principal Long Range Planner Tay Harris.
The town center’s boundaries have been contested. Harris’s timeline said the 2019 comprehensive plan recommended expanding Huntingtown across Route 4, and a 2022 amendment eliminated the proposed expansion area. A Planning Commission member said the expansion had actually been approved by the county commissioners on a 3-2 vote in 2019 and then pulled back in 2022, and asked staff to correct the record. Staff said it would clarify at its next town center presentation.
In 2025, a county online survey found support for keeping Huntingtown’s town center designation rather than splitting it into separate residential and commercial zones, Harris said, and the Planning Commission directed staff to update the master plan. Multifamily housing is not allowed in the Huntingtown or Owings town centers.
Staff will present histories of the Dunkirk, Lusby, Prince Frederick, Solomons and St. Leonard town centers at future meetings. Dates for the Huntingtown master plan workshops were not announced.
