As it stands now, Baltimore Avenue, all two blocks of it, is, in my view, one of the most unique and attractive streets in Rehoboth with its ambiance of a multiplicity – top-end restaurants; shops; business offices; residential units; real estate offices; the old church, now a theater; CAMP Rehoboth; and the silhouettes of the restored and still existing camp meeting cottages, along with the breakthrough malls. My family and I have benefited from ownership of two of the oldest buildings in the second block, consisting of a camp meeting cottage and an accompanying apartment. They are among the oldest buildings in Rehoboth, and thereby have a unique historic value from the camp meeting days on through the founding of Rehoboth as a municipality in 1873. The town had been literally laid out from that plan of the original camp meeting association.
If anything, the history of an avenue and its architecture are of overwhelming importance in establishing that avenue's, and Rehoboth's, ambiance, which makes it an obvious draw for visitors coming here. Preserving that architecture and history from actual physical destruction is quite difficult in these times of the high economic valuation of real estate here. I admit I have no answer as to a method for the preservation of what I have described here, save for a strong sentiment that it is worth preserving, on this avenue as elsewhere.
I am grateful to William V. Sipple and Sons in Milford for having, at my instruction, installed in the ground an etching in South African black granite of our old family structures, placed in front of the southwest corner of the 43 Baltimore Camp Meeting Cottage and its accompanying apartment. Hopefully that installation will serve down the road as a reminder, and a contribution, to the preservation of what is important on this avenue and in Rehoboth in general.
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