Saratoga Building & Land Corp. v. Roland Park Apartment Stables Co.

TJeNSR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The Roland Park Company of Baltimore City, on December 1, 1920, conveyed to the Roland P'ark Apartment Stables Company of Baltimore 'County a lot of ground containing about one and one-half acres and forming a part of the land which the grantor corporation had acquired for the purposes of suburban improvement. The deed conveying the lot referred to contains certain covenants restricting its use, among which are the following: ¹⁵⁴ “1. That no shop, store, factory, saloon, business house of any kind, other than stables, no hospital, asylum or institution of like or kindred nature, and no charitable institution shall be erected or maintained on said premises, but the said premises shall be occupied and used by the said Roland Park Apartment Stables Company, its successors and assigns, including all tenants, either for stables or for residence purposes and not otherwise. “2.

That no residence or dwelling house shall be erected or kept on said land costing less than three thousand (3,000.00) dollars, and any building erected on said land within tdn (10) years from date of this deed, shall be built according to plans which shall have been approved by the architect of the said Roland Park Company of Baltimore City.” The lot thus conveyed has not been used for residence purposes, 'but stables and public g’arages have been maintained on it for many yeans. Recently the Roland Park Apartment Stables Company contracted to sell and convey a portion of the lot to the Saratoga Building and Land Corporation under an agreement which provided that the title should be “free of any building restriction that would prohibit the erection thereon of an apartment house to' be designed and occupied for.residential purposes.” Because of doubt as to the ability of the vendor to convey a title free of such a restriction, the vendee has refused compliance with the contract of purchase. In this suit for specific performance the only question is whether an objection to the title on that ground is sustainable. The appeal is from a decree requiring the agreement of purchase to be specifically performed. ^{155 156} On tbe plat herewith reproduced the lot here in question is designated as Lot 1, Block 9, Plat 2, fronting 370 feet on W'oodside Road and 123 feet on Upland Road.

It is in a section of thé Roland Park area which has been devoted in part to other than residence purposes. At the southwest comer of the same block is the stable of the Baltimore Country Club, erected under the permissive terms of the conveyance made to- it in 1906. On the opposite side of Woodside Road is a car bam of the United Railways and Electric Company. The entire block on which it stands, and which is almost wholly used for railroad purposes, was conveyed to the Railways and Electric Company by the Roland Park Company prior to the execution in 1900 of the deed to the Roland Park Apartment Stables Company for the lot now in controversy. .

Prior to that time also the Roland Park Company itself had erected on Block 21, shown on the plat, a large business building, three stories in height, with five stores on the first floor and with residential apartments on the second and third floors, and subsequently it built a three-story brick-apartment house on the same block, containing six separate five-room apartments. The portion of the Roland Park Apartment Stables Company’s lot which is not included in the contract of sale now sought to be enforced is occupied by large concrete buildings which have been used for a long period of time as a public garage and an automobile repair shop. The cost of the apartment house proposed to be built by the purchaser on the lot with which we are here concerned will not be less than $3,000 for each apartment, and the building will be used for residential purposes exclusively. In the deeds for practically all of the properties conveyed by the Roland Park Company, other than those to which we have specially referred, there are restrictive covenants which