There is a happy ending to this story. I’m sure. I just don’t yet have it to share.

Almost 30 years ago, I fell in love with a charming and historic out-of-the-ordinary town called Ellicott City, Maryland. I bought my first home about 7 minutes outside the old city where I ran my graphic design business in the basement. Over time the business grew and needed a new home, out I went on a journey to find us a new home. The only requirement: working windows.

I visited Oella Mill just outside of Ellicott City and fell in love with the old historic industrial space with big tall old windows and gorgeous light. I searched everywhere, considered rentals in industrial parks, and knew I would not be happy going to work every day in a windowless bowling alley. I was ready to sign a lease when the owner of the property, who is now deceased, Peter Ruff, shared in confidence that he was about to sell the Mill and the property would be converted to apartment homes. He asked me to meet him on Main Street, Ellicott City, to look at a building for sale.

I was in my early thirties. I had a lot of energy. I had a little bit of money put away, and I was as naive as you would expect me to be. I negotiated the purchase price with a reduction of forty thousand dollars, explaining that, in my estimation, it would cost eighty thousand dollars to fully renovate. I got what I asked for. And more.

8231 Main Street was once home to Higginbotham funeral home. Then a bakery. Next, it was owned by a structural engineer before it was sold to a group of investors who chopped the space into small offices on 2 floors. The basement was unfinished; it was a stadium-poured concrete floor. The ceiling was 20 feet high in parts, and in others, it had a 12-foot ceiling. The walls on all three floors were circa 1960 wood paneling.

It was ugly, but I saw potential.

Becoming a Landlord

A few tenants had leases that I was required to honor when I bought the building. I was okay with having tenants until I realized that a few of them did not pay their rent, either at all or very late in the month. I got impatient and decided to start demolition in some of the empty spaces. Tempers flared. One of the most late-to-pay-rent tenants, Frank, who spoke with a deep French accent, called his buddy at the planning and zoning office to complain. He concocted a story about asbestos to get us to stop the demolition. The building predated the use of asbestos. If the folks at zoning and planning (DPZ) knew what they were doing, they would have intrinsically known this. That would not be the first detail they “didn’t know” as time passed.

We stopped the demolition. We secured the required expensive environmental reports to prove that there was no asbestos, and almost at the same time, we were able to rid the building of the deadbeat tenant.

Shortly after that, I visited the building to find a stop-work order. We started this process without a permit. I didn’t know we needed a permit. Peter Ruff was at the helm of this project, and this was how he did things in Howard County, and apparently, in every other instance of his renovations along Main Street, he worked without a permit. 

Peter was a member of the club.

Peter was helping me with this project, but I suspected that the rules had to be enforced because he did not own the building. It could be some other issue; I am not sure. When we were required to get a permit, Peter excused himself and wished me well. From that point forward, Howard County Planning and Zoning decided to give me extra-special treatment during my renovation project. It wasn’t the good kind of extra-special. Today, it would be called harassment.