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Coordinates: 39°11′6″N 76°51′35″W / 39.18500°N 76.85972°W / 39.18500; -76.85972
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Each of the three neighborhoods of Kings Contrivance has a community swimming pool operated by the Columbia Association.
Each of the three neighborhoods of Kings Contrivance has a community swimming pool operated by the Columbia Association.


There are many recreational parks in and around Kings Contrivance, including Gorman Park, Huntington Neighborhood Park, and [[Savage, Maryland|Savage]] Park, all of which are maintained by Howard County Recreation and Parks and the [[Columbia Association]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.co.ho.md.us/RAP/RAP_HowardCountyParks.htm |title=Howard County Parks |website=www.co.ho.md.us |access-date=May 29, 2009 }}{{deadlink |date=April 2017}}</ref> There are also many scenic trails, including The Patuxent Branch Trail, that weave in and around the neighborhoods of Kings Contrivance, providing access to the county parks, as well as to Columbia's extensive bike/hiking trail system.
There are many recreational parks in and around Kings Contrivance, including Gorman Park, Huntington Neighborhood Park, and [[Savage, Maryland|Savage]] Park, all of which are maintained by Howard County Recreation and Parks and the [[Columbia Association]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.co.ho.md.us/RAP/RAP_HowardCountyParks.htm |title=Howard County Parks |website=www.co.ho.md.us |access-date=May 29, 2009 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090426064311/http://www.co.ho.md.us/RAP/RAP_HowardCountyParks.htm |archivedate=April 26, 2009 |df= }}</ref> There are also many scenic trails, including The Patuxent Branch Trail, that weave in and around the neighborhoods of Kings Contrivance, providing access to the county parks, as well as to Columbia's extensive bike/hiking trail system.


==Education==
==Education==
Line 170: Line 170:
In 1990, the pastor of [[Trinity Church (Elkridge, Maryland)|Trinity Church of Elkridge]] formed the South Columbia Baptist Church by demolishing the historic 1846 Thomas Worthington home "[[Moundland]]" to build a new facility adjacent to [[Hammond High School (Columbia, Maryland)|Hammond High School]].<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=The Baltimore Sun|title=Church, historic house vie as good vs. good|date=December 10, 1990|author=Norris P. West}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=HO-40 Moundland|url=http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/stagsere/se1/se5/015000/015600/015613/pdf/msa_se5_15613.pdf|accessdate=April 16, 2014}}</ref>
In 1990, the pastor of [[Trinity Church (Elkridge, Maryland)|Trinity Church of Elkridge]] formed the South Columbia Baptist Church by demolishing the historic 1846 Thomas Worthington home "[[Moundland]]" to build a new facility adjacent to [[Hammond High School (Columbia, Maryland)|Hammond High School]].<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=The Baltimore Sun|title=Church, historic house vie as good vs. good|date=December 10, 1990|author=Norris P. West}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=HO-40 Moundland|url=http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/stagsere/se1/se5/015000/015600/015613/pdf/msa_se5_15613.pdf|accessdate=April 16, 2014}}</ref>


Scenes from the movie ''[[Roulette (film)|Roulette]]'' (2013) were filmed at the Kings Contrivance restaurant.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YWYHq9_QabI |title=Luck of the Draw: The Making of 'Roulette' Part 16 |publisher=YouTube |access-date=April 24, 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media |url=http://www.nme.com/movies/trailers/id/YWYHq9_QabI/search/movie |title=Luck of the Draw: The Making of 'Roulette' Part 16 Trailer |publisher=NME |minutes=6:55 |access-date=January 11, 2014 |quote=at the Kings Contrivance restaurant in Columbia, Maryland}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Roulette|access-date=January 8, 2014|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1294794/|publisher=IMDB}}</ref>
Scenes from the movie ''[[Roulette (film)|Roulette]]'' (2013) were filmed at the Kings Contrivance restaurant.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YWYHq9_QabI |title=Luck of the Draw: The Making of 'Roulette' Part 16 |publisher=YouTube |access-date=April 24, 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media|url=http://www.nme.com/movies/trailers/id/YWYHq9_QabI/search/movie |title=Luck of the Draw: The Making of 'Roulette' Part 16 Trailer |publisher=NME |minutes=6:55 |access-date=January 11, 2014 |quote=at the Kings Contrivance restaurant in Columbia, Maryland |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111164448/http://www.nme.com/movies/trailers/id/YWYHq9_QabI/search/movie |archivedate=January 11, 2014 |df= }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Roulette|access-date=January 8, 2014|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1294794/|publisher=IMDB}}</ref>


==See also==
==See also==

Revision as of 18:29, 24 April 2017

Kings Contrivance
Village
Map
CountryUnited States
StateMaryland
CityColumbia
Established1977[1]
Named forKings Contrivance restaurant

Kings Contrivance is a village in the planned community of Columbia, Maryland, and is home to about 11,000 residents. The eighth of Columbia's ten villages to be developed, Kings Contrivance is Columbia's southernmost village[2]. It consists of the neighborhoods of Macgill's Common, Huntington and Dickinson, and includes single-family homes, townhouses, apartments and a Village Center (open-air shopping center).

Villages of Columbia

Name origin

The village takes its name from a local restaurant that was opened in 1962 by Kingdon Gould, Jr. in an old county home that previously belonged to the Macgill family. Gould named his restaurant "The King's Contrivance" to incorporate both his name and the historical feel of the old Colonial land grants, many of which included the word "contrivance". Gould sold the restaurant to the Rouse related developer of Columbia, the Howard Research and Development Corp., in 1967. In 1973, Kings Contrivance was selected as the name of the new village "because of its familiarity and identification with the area of the village." [3][4][5]

History

Over a period of time, developer James W. Rouse became interested in building a new model city, and in the early 1960s, his company, The Rouse Company, with funding provided by Connecticut General Life Insurance, acquired over 14,000 acres in Howard County, Maryland for that purpose. Together, the Rouse Company and Connecticut General formed The Howard Research and Development Corporation (HRD) to develop the new town of Columbia. In October 1963, the plans for the new city were made public. In 1965 the Howard County government approved the HRD's requested master plan for Columbia which included a new zoning classification, New Town zoning, that applied to the HRD's development of Columbia and which allowed for considerable flexibility in that development.

In November 1973, the HRD announced plans for its newest village, Kings Contrivance.[6] Development of Kings Contrivance, however, was subsequently delayed due to the effects of the 1973–75 Recession.[7] The first neighborhood of Kings Contrivance, Magill's Common, opened in 1977.

Macgill's Common and the vast majority of the Dickinson neighborhood are located on land that was sold to HDR in September 1963 by Overlook, Inc., a company owned by Kingdon Gould. Overlook, Inc. had acquired the land in several purchases in 1960 and 1961.[8] The Macgill's Common and Dickinson areas were included in the original 1965 New Town zoning district that delineates the boundaries of Columbia. Most of the land in the Huntington neighborhood was not acquired by HRD until 1971, and Huntington was not included in the original 1965 New Town zoning district, but was added to it in December 1976.[9]

The neighborhood of Macgill's Common opened in 1977, Huntington in 1979, and Dickinson in 1982.

In 1999 the HRD proposed that an additional 517-acre tract be annexed to Columbia as Kings Contrivance's fourth neighborhood.[10] The tract, initially known as the Key property, but later called Emerson, was located on Gorman Road and bordered Route 216 and straddled I-95.[11][12] It had been acquired by HRD in 1971 from a firm led by Kingdon Gould,[13] and was about two miles from the nearest part of Kings Contrivance. Opponents of the proposal contended that Emerson was too distant from the rest of Kings Contrivance and that the Columbia Association would be required to make expensive near-term expenditures to provide amenities for the new neighborhood, including a swimming pool and pathways. Supporters of the proposal argued that annexation of Emerson would generate considerably more revenue for the Columbia Association in the long-run.[14] In November 2000 the Columbia Council, governing board of the Columbia Association, rejected the annexation proposal by a 7-to-3 vote, with Kings Contrivance's representative supporting it.[15] Emerson was subsequently developed separately from Columbia.

Neighborhoods

Macgill's Common

Macgill's Common, which opened June 25, 1977, extends to the northwest towards the center of Columbia, and takes its name from the Reverend James Macgill, 1730 pastor of Christ Church Guilford, and resident of Athol Manor, whose land grant "Athol Enlarged" is partially included in the King's Contrivance Neighborhood. Prominent heir, land planner and Judge James MacGill lived in the house that later became The King's Contrivance restaurant as a child, selling the 780-acre estate and home to Kingdon Gould for development through a company named Overlook Inc., after his personal Overlook Farm Estate.[16][17] According to the original 1973 Kings Contrivance plans, the neighborhood, which was to be called Macgill's Range, would consist of single family homes and would include a 35-acre 18-hole golf course that was to be built and operated by the Columbia Association. [18][19] The HRD promoted the golf course as a future revenue source for the Columbia Association that would lessen reliance on property assessments, while critics of the plan charged that its purpose was to allow HRD to charge more for property in the neighborhood.[20][21] In March 1974 the Columbia Association, which was then still dominated by the HRD, approved a budget that called for building the golf course.[22] In July 1974, however, HRD announced that it was delaying development of Kings Contrivance and Macgill's Range indefinitely due to slow real estate sales caused by the 1973–75 recession.[7] Development of Kings Contrivance did not resume until the Spring of 1976, with the first work beginning on what was now called Macgill's Common in October 1976. [23][24] Macgill's Common officially opened on June 25, 1977, and the golf course was never built there.

The street names of Macgill's Common come from the Folk Songs of North America compilation recorded by Alan Lomax.[25]

Huntington

Huntington opened June 1, 1979, to the southeast of the village center, and is named for an historic home land grant of 259 acres to the son of Henry Ridgely Sr. in 1696.[26]

The street names of Huntington are derived from the works of Carl Sandburg.[25] Huntington South, an outparcel surrounded by Huntington, was developed in 1986 by the Security Development Company, which requested input from the Rouse Company in naming the streets in its development. The list of names provided, including Lumberjack Row, Red Rain Way and Windbeat Way, were also taken from Sandburg poems.[27]

Dickinson

Dickinson opened September 25, 1982 to the west, and takes its name from the famous American poet, Emily Dickinson.[25]

Dickinson has street names taken from the work of Emily Dickinson.[25]

At one time Kindler Road ran from Guilford Road, in what is now Dickinson, across a bridge over the Middle Patuxent River and then to Gorman Road in Hammond Village. The bridge, however, washed out during Tropical Storm Agnes in June 1972 and was not replaced. Parts of the bridge abutment are still present.[28]

Village Center

The Village Center, opened in 1986,[26] contains a McDonald's, a Chinese restaurant, an Italian diner called Trattoria E Pizzeria de Enrico, a Subway restaurant, a liquor store, a CVS, several ATMs, a beauty salon, a barber, a dry cleaner, a formal wear shop, office space, medical offices, an orthodontist office, an Allstate Insurance agency, a gas station, and a cobbler. A Harris Teeter grocery store, the second to open in Maryland, opened in May 2008, on the site of a Safeway that had closed in 2006. (Before Safeway, the grocery anchor was Valu Food.) A Rita's Italian ice store was also added in 2008. In November 2011, the Corner Stable replaced Michael's Pub as the flagship restaurant in the village center.[29]

Amherst House, the location of the Kings Contrivance Community Association, is also in the village center. This building, named after Emily Dickinson's hometown in Massachusetts, also serves as a rental hall for community events, parties, and meetings.[25]


Parks and Recreation

Each of the three neighborhoods of Kings Contrivance has a community swimming pool operated by the Columbia Association.

There are many recreational parks in and around Kings Contrivance, including Gorman Park, Huntington Neighborhood Park, and Savage Park, all of which are maintained by Howard County Recreation and Parks and the Columbia Association.[30] There are also many scenic trails, including The Patuxent Branch Trail, that weave in and around the neighborhoods of Kings Contrivance, providing access to the county parks, as well as to Columbia's extensive bike/hiking trail system.

Education

Hammond High School

The public schools serving the village are:

Miscellaneous

In 1990, the pastor of Trinity Church of Elkridge formed the South Columbia Baptist Church by demolishing the historic 1846 Thomas Worthington home "Moundland" to build a new facility adjacent to Hammond High School.[31][32]

Scenes from the movie Roulette (2013) were filmed at the Kings Contrivance restaurant.[33][34][35]

See also

References

  1. ^ "About Us". King's Contrivance Community Association. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  2. ^ "Columbia Villages". The Villages of Columbia. Retrieved February 14, 2014.
  3. ^ Missy Burke; Robin Emrich; Barbara Kellner (2008). Oh, you must live in Columbia!. Columbia Archives. p. 55. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  4. ^ Howard County Deeds, Book 480, p.44
  5. ^ Joseph Rocco Mitchell; David L. Stebenne. New City Upon a Hill. p. 115.
  6. ^ "Homes on the Range: A Village is Born". The Columbia Flier. November 15, 1973. p. 9.
  7. ^ a b "Kings Contrivance Delayed Indefinitely". The Columbia Flier. July 25, 1974. p. 8.
  8. ^ "Howard County Deeds, Book 406" (Document). p. 506. {{cite document}}: Cite document requires |publisher= (help)
  9. ^ "Zoning Board Votes New Columbia Plan". The Columbia Flyer. December 9, 1976. p. 10.
  10. ^ "Rouse Wants to Absorb Area – N. Laurel Community Would Become a Part of Kings Contrivance". Baltimore Sun. November 5, 1999. p. 1B.
  11. ^ "Board to weigh land annexation". The Baltimore Sun. May 18, 2000. p. 1B.
  12. ^ "Annexation of Key property in doubt". The Baltimore Sun. August 6, 2000. p. 1B.
  13. ^ "Columbia Developer Buys Nearby Land". Baltimore Sun. October 29, 1971. p. C22.
  14. ^ "Board to weigh land annexation". Baltimore Sun. May 18, 2000. p. 1B.
  15. ^ "Association rejects Key annexation; Decision effectively shuts down plans for expansion". Baltimore Sun. November 22, 2000. p. 1B.
  16. ^ Missy Burke; Robin Emrich; Barbara Kellner. Oh, You must live in Columbia. p. 55.
  17. ^ Howard's Roads to the Past. Howard County Sesquicentennial Celebration Committee. 2001. pp. 82–83.
  18. ^ "Columbia Plans New Village". The Washington Post. November 17, 1973.
  19. ^ "Homes on the Range: A Village is Born". The Columbia Flier. November 15, 1973. p. 9.
  20. ^ "Spear: 'I Could Not Dictate to CA'". The Columbia Flier. March 7, 1974. p. 3.
  21. ^ "Something's Got to Give". The Columbia Flier. August 15, 1974. p. 6.
  22. ^ "CA Board Passes Budget". The Columbia Flier. April 6, 1974. p. 8.
  23. ^ "The Housing Market Hot Again, Says HRD". The Columbia Flier. March 25, 1976. p. 21.
  24. ^ "Model Park Race Down to the Wire". The Columbia Flier. June 23, 1977. p. 26.
  25. ^ a b c d e "About Us". Kings Contrivance Community Association. Retrieved February 14, 2014.
  26. ^ a b Mitchell, Joseph Rocco; Stebenne, David (2007). New City Upon a Hill: A History of Columbia, Maryland. The History Press. p. 129. ISBN 1-59629-067-6.
  27. ^ Missy Burke; Robin Emrich; Barbara Kellner. Oh, You must live in Columbia. p. 61.
  28. ^ "Residents oppose plan for bridge; Gorman Park span could add disruptions and litter, they say". Howard Ed. The Baltimore Sun. February 3, 2000. p. 1B.
  29. ^ "Corner Stable doors to open in Columbia", Baltimore Sun, accessed January 3, 2014
  30. ^ "Howard County Parks". www.co.ho.md.us. Archived from the original on April 26, 2009. Retrieved May 29, 2009. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  31. ^ Norris P. West (December 10, 1990). "Church, historic house vie as good vs. good". The Baltimore Sun.
  32. ^ "HO-40 Moundland" (PDF). Retrieved April 16, 2014.
  33. ^ "Luck of the Draw: The Making of 'Roulette' Part 16". YouTube. Retrieved April 24, 2017.
  34. ^ Luck of the Draw: The Making of 'Roulette' Part 16 Trailer. NME. 6:55 minutes in. Archived from the original on January 11, 2014. Retrieved January 11, 2014. at the Kings Contrivance restaurant in Columbia, Maryland {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  35. ^ "Roulette". IMDB. Retrieved January 8, 2014.

39°11′6″N 76°51′35″W / 39.18500°N 76.85972°W / 39.18500; -76.85972

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