Arden on the Severn residents enjoy many perks of living on the water

August 19, 2024

Arden on the Severn lured property buyers in the 1950s with the promise of summer living at the beach. Today, residents of this Anne Arundel County, Md. community enjoy that lifestyle year-round.

“Even if I won the lottery and billions of dollars, I would still live here,” said Stacy Henderson, resident of this waterfront community along the Severn River since 2019.

Arden, 30 miles east of Washington, boasts many perks of waterfront living: four private beaches, three boat ramps, kayak racks, fishing piers and dinghy docks. “It’s just so fun. I can jump on my boat. I fish. I crab. I can go to dinner in Annapolis by boat,” said Henderson, secretary of the Arden Community Association (ACA).

But the best part, she said, is the community of dedicated, often longtime, residents who support and celebrate one another. “Families move in, and they don’t move out, or if you grow up here and you move away, you move back.”

For ACA President Kim Franklin, who grew up in Arden, it’s simple. “Once you’re here, you don’t want to leave,” she said. Her grandparents “stumbled upon advertising” for what was then Sunrise Beach about 75 years ago.

“This summer and every summer… live at the beach and commute to work,” read one 1950s newspaper advertisement that showcased lots for $495 as an escape from the heat of Baltimore and Washington.

Franklin’s grandparents, who lived in Washington, purchased their lot in the early 1950s and built a garage, which temporarily served as their weekend residence. “A lot of people did that. They would stay in a shed that they built, or some type of outbuilding, so that they could work on their house on the weekends,” Franklin said. Residents, including her uncle James Goode, helped neighbors clear land for building properties and roads.

As the growing community began staying permanently, they established the Arden Civic Association (now the Arden Community Association) in 1955 and changed the community’s name to Arden on the Severn. Residents finished constructing a community building called “Town Hall,” largely by donations and volunteer labor and materials, in 1962. “They were building a community from scratch,” Franklin said.

Arden now includes just under 1,000 single-family houses in five sections, Franklin said. But it started as a small community “literally built by volunteers.”

Franklin’s parents purchased their house and the empty lot next door — directly behind her grandparents’ property — for $15,000 in 1966. Her father gifted her the empty lot in 1992 for $1 — and she built the house in which her children were raised.

“Arden is my heart,” Franklin said. “My roots are so deep here,” allowing for the bonds she has with countless community members, including Jim Rainwater and his relatives.

Rainwater purchased his house for $33,900 in 1973. He was an “original door knocker” in the Beach Buying Committee that ACA created in the 1970s. They aimed to purchase Sunrise Beach Inc. (also known as Beach Shores, Inc.), former owner of the private beaches, and all its associated properties.

“We ended up going house to house, every house in the community, soliciting funds to raise $60,000 to buy the beaches,” Rainwater said. “And we did!” he said, deeding the beach properties to a new organization created by ACA in 1976 called Arden Beaches, Inc. (ABI).

“It was really a fantastic place to raise your kids,” Rainwater said. “They had access to everything,” including swimming in calm waters, biking on quiet streets and exploring Arden’s oak woodland.

Efforts to preserve Arden’s past and present continues through the NewsBuoy, Arden’s newspaper since 1955 that was digitized in 2020. Franklin also created the Community Outreach Committee, which delivers welcome packets and hosts Arden information sessions.

“I wanted to bring back that feel of community camaraderie when they [ACA] first organized,” Franklin said. One effort has been reigniting the Arden Teens Club, which is planning a New York City trip in December, she said. There’s also an Arden Kids Club, as well as an Arden Seniors Club, which hosts a monthly Seniors Luncheon with around 40 attendees.

This vibrant atmosphere is what sold Cindy Scilipoti and her husband, longtime Marylanders who moved to Arden in 2018 to “get back to the water,” she said. “You can just be relaxed and free back here,” with benefits like crab feasts with friends on the beach, Scilipoti said.

A big focus now, Scilipoti said, is communicating with newcomers and younger generations, like her daughter, to “pass along” Arden’s close community and history.

ACA is voluntary with no required fee. ABI shareholders recently voted to increase the mandatory annual user fee (to use the private beaches) over a three-year period to total of $253 per tax account (which includes the annual lot assessment fee of $22 per lot) by 2026, Franklin said. Residents owning more than one lot will pay an additional $22 per additional lot per year.

Living there: Arden is secluded at the end of Sunrise Beach Road, with Crownsville Veterans Cemetery and Arden Park, a public park owned by the county, near the entrance.

As of Sept. 6, there were two houses on the market: a three-bedroom, two-bathroom colonial for $390,000 and a three-bedroom, three-bathroom colonial for $535,000, said Henderson with Coldwell Banker Realty. In the past year, 21 houses sold, ranging from a three-bedroom, one-bathroom rambler for $380,000 to a four-bedroom, two-bathroom split-level house for $1.02 million, she said.

Schools: Millersville Elementary, Old Mill Middle School South, Old Mill High School.

Transit: Arden is about 12 miles from Annapolis, 22 miles from Baltimore and 30 miles from Washington. Baltimore/Washington International Airport is 15 miles away. The Odenton MARC station is eight miles away, and the Glen Burnie light rail station is 12 miles away. Commuter buses to Washington stop at the Davidsonville Park & Ride and the Severna Park & Ride, each about 11 miles away.

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