Rose Hill Manor, now Rose Hill Manor Park & Children's Museum, greets you with its two-story pedimented portico. The house you see is a 2+1⁄2-story brick dwelling whose most arresting feature is that large two-story pedimented portico: fluted Doric columns hold the first-floor weight while Ionic columns ring the balustraded second floor. This was the retirement home of Thomas Johnson (1732–1819), the first elected governor of the State of Maryland and later an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
The house itself was built in the mid-1790s by his daughter and son-in-law, and its lines and classical columns still announce the aspirations of that era. In 1971 Rose Hill Manor was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a recognition of its architectural and historical significance. The land beneath you has an older story, once part of “Tasker’s Chance,” a 7,000-acre tract owned in 1726 by Benjamin Tasker; in 1737 a group of German farmers took out an option on the tract and Daniel Dulany, an Annapolis lawyer and land speculator, later bought the option and then the tract itself.
The portico and its two orders of columns dominate this view before you.