The Bland-Bryant Convalescent Building (for Men), c. 1930

The Bland-Bryant Convalescent Building was built in 1930, and was named for two sitting members of the hospital's Board of Managers: R. Howard Bland and Howard Bryant, president and secretary, respectively. The building cost $460,000 to build, and had a bed capacity of 430. It was originally designed to serve convalescent male patients, i.e., those who were able to tolerate the more open and independent setting that the building offered. Although perhaps more inviting in its appearance than the nearby Foster-Wade Building, which had been completed just three years earlier, the Bland-Bryant Building was intentionally designed to resemble the Foster-Wade. Together with the Main Building, the Foster-Wade and the Bland-Bryant Buildings each formed one of the points of a sort of triangle of buildings, all of which faced each other. Built a few years later, the Convalescent Women's Group ("Stone Cottages") served as the women's counterpart to the Bland-Bryant Building. The athletic field that is immediately behind the "BB Building" is formally known as the Weltmer Bowl (right). This still-popular park was begun in in 1936, and was completed in 1945. According to one report, 90% of the work required to build the Weltmer Bowl was done by the patients of the Bland-Bryant Building. (History of Spring Grove State Hospital, 1947.) The Bland-Bryant Building has been remodeled several times over the years. During the 1980s it served as a state-run nursing home, and during the 1990s it was the site of the hospital's assisted living program, known as the Bridge Residential Programs -- the Bridge Unit and the Home Run House. (The Home Run House, which was relocated to another building in the late 1990s, was given its name by a patient, who noted that he was inspired by the view of the Weltmer Bowl's baseball diamonds from the Bland-Bryant Building.) Today the Bland-Bryant Building is used as an office building for several Maryland State agencies.