The Baltimore County Landmarks Preservation Commission voted Thursday night to let the new owners of 34 Willow Ave. tear down their recently purchased yellow Victorian, arguing that it doesn’t meet either of the two criteria necessary to protect it from demolition.

The home, off York Road near downtown Towson, belonged to members of the McGrain family for nearly 150 years. The first McGrain in Towson was a farm manager at Aigburth Vale, caretaking for the actor who owned it. His descendant, John McGrain Jr., became the first official historian of Baltimore County and was the executive secretary of the county landmarks commission for two decades. A beloved chronicler of the county’s past, he landmarked several of its finest examples of architecture and wrote several books highlighting important historical mills.

By law, historic landmarks must both honor an important person and a distinctive property, and the person’s accomplishments need to have been at least 50 years ago. John McGrain Jr. died in 2021, so he does not qualify. His nephew, Rob McGrain, sold the house at auction, with no instructions from his uncle to preserve it in any way. His uncle clearly did not want the home to become student housing for Towson University, which is less than a half-mile away.

“My uncle understood what landmarking was. He chose not to landmark the home,” Rob McGrain said. “My uncle’s wish was that 34 Willow be a place that a family could live. I think it still has the ability to be that.”

Deniz and Cris Moen, structural engineers, paid $335,000 for the property with the intention to renovate and preserve it as a family home. However, Cris Moen testified, they found major structural flaws, including a primary bearing wall that was not well supported and was dragging the entire structure down. Renovating it would cost at least $400,000, he said.

“We spent maybe two years studying it. We more or less decided that it made more sense to build a new home,” Moen said.

They were planning to do that when they received a letter. A neighbor, Ed Kilcullen, had heard that Baltimore Gas and Electric was not going to install a meter because the new owners planned to demolish the home. That prompted him to file the application nominating their property for landmark status, Kilcullen said.

In Baltimore County, the law allows anyone to nominate a property to be landmarked and protected, regardless of ownership. That put the Moens on the defensive, having to convince neighbors that they should be able to change the property in the most economical way. Of the dozen or so letters the commission received, about half came from those who supported saving the house and half from those who felt the Moens should be able to demolish it and build what they wanted.

Commissioner C. Scott Holupka agreed with the camp saying the owners could decide.

“I always find this kind of nomination disturbing when it’s not the owner of the property. It sounds like an unfunded mandate, requiring significant resources from the new owners. And it sounds like the applicant only came forth with the idea once they learned it would be torn down,” he said. He called it “unconscionable” to force homeowners who bought under one set of rules to then have to abide by another.

Commissioner Wendy McIver reminded Holupka that those are the laws the commission operates under. She voted to protect the Victorian.

“The house itself was in the beginnings of Towson. That is historic on its own,” she said. She added that the area had lost many historic homes when developers built Towson Green, a large townhouse community in the neighborhood. “So many of these old houses are going down. There are not many left.”

Kilcullen, a past president of the neighborhood association, questioned why the Moens bought the house if they were structural engineers and could tell it needed so much work that it would have to come down. He said the neighborhood, which includes 475 homes, was only split because of misinformation circulating that the home would become student apartments if the Moens didn’t get to demolish it.

“I have gotten really hostile texts and emails who are basing their opinions on this misinformation,” he said.

But Justin Levy, a neighbor and the owner of The Music Space a few blocks away, said he spoke to both the Moens and Kilcullen, and concluded that the house was in poor shape. He didn’t want the Moens to be forced to sell it or turn it into a rental for students, or see it become a fraternity house. Plus, he added, so many of the best representations of Victorian architecture already faced the bulldozer to build Towson Green.

“It’s not the house that makes the neighborhood,” he said. “It’s the neighbors.”

Ultimately, neither McGrain the man nor his house was deemed to meet the guidelines, by a 7-4 vote. Commissioners noted that the historian was so busy protecting history elsewhere that he didn’t focus on his own house. The home had vinyl siding; the hardwood floors included some cheap plywood. The style, known as Folk Victorian with a center cross gable, is indicative of the time in which it was built, but better examples of that style remain in the Lutherville and Glyndon historic districts, some commissioners noted.

Said his nephew, Rob McGrain: “I would like my uncle to remembered for his contributions to Baltimore County, not the houses he lived in.”