The former Mount Vernon mansion that houses The Brewer’s Art restaurant and brewery failed to sell in an online auction on Wednesday, despite a flurry of bidding in the last hour that culminated with a top offer of $1.45 million.
Alex Cooper Auctioneers handled the auction of the five-level, 23,400-square-foot building at 1106 N. Charles St., constructed in 1906 as a private residence and later converted for commercial and academic uses.
The auction was held as an online-only sale that began on March 29 and ended shortly after 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The owner is Bendixhq LLC., which bought the property for $1.774 million in 2018 according to state land records. With a five percent buyer’s premium on top of the $1.45 million high bid, the total cost to the buyer would have been $1,522,500. But according to the auctioneers, the seller rejected the offer.
The building’s primary occupant, The Brewer’s Art, has been a tenant for 27 years and has a lease that gives it options to renew. It occupies the main level, lower level and part of the second level. Bidders were informed that the business, furniture, fixtures and equipment of the tenant were not part of the sale.
The starting bid was $750,000, and a deposit of $20,000 was required to bid. An hour before the auction ended, the high bid was $1.15 million. From there bidding rose in increments of at least $10,000 until the price reached $1.45 million.
Designed by Wyatt and Nolting and constructed shortly after the Great Fire of 1904, the Charles Street building was initially the home of W. G. Bowdoin, a senior partner at Alex. Brown and Sons. In 1930, a four-story addition was constructed in the rear. In the 1970s, Antioch College used the building as a satellite campus.
According to the auction listing, the building’s main level has a bar area that overlooks Charles Street, two dining rooms and a lounge. The lower level has a bar, additional dining rooms, a kitchen, and a large room devoted to the brewing of beer.
The second floor is substantially finished into a series of offices occupied by The Brewer’s Art and two other tenants. The third and fourth levels, once home of the Meyers & D’Aleo architecture studio, are unoccupied. In 2016, the city of Baltimore approved a plan to convert those levels to 12 dwellings, nine efficiencies and three one-bedroom units.
The Charles Street property is one of two high-profile auctions in Baltimore that didn’t end up with a buyer on Wednesday. Alex Cooper also was offering the former funeral home at 3818 Roland Ave., which was recently designated a Baltimore City landmark. In that case, the high bid of $380,000 was rejected by the seller.
Another Mount Vernon auction had more success last week, when Alex Cooper sold an apartment complex at 14 and 16 E. Madison St. for $2.597 million.
According to the auctioneer, the complex is configured for 20 apartments but is currently leased by a recovery center that pays the entirety of the rent, which is $26,000 per month or $312,000 a year. Online bidding started on March 23 and ended on March 28. Alex Cooper sold the property in cooperation with Yaakov Kanevsky.
