Effort to establish Catholic academy in county stalls

Friday, Feb. 6, 2009

A group of local parents has withdrawn a request for a special exception to build the Pope John Paul II Academy in Port Tobacco.

Michael Schreyer, a local attorney who is the president of the academy's board of directors, said the group wanted to build the academy on 48 acres on a historic tract that contains Ellerslie, the house in which Daniel St. Thomas Jenifer, one of the signers of the U.S. Constitution, was born. But, it is taking way too long to get the Maryland State Highway Administration's approval to provide access to the school off Port Tobacco Road, he said.

The alternate access to the school would have to be from Ann Harbor Drive — a notion that most residents who live in the area strongly oppose.

Schreyer said that the group is looking to operate the school out of leased quarters, at least for the next two to three years, instead.

"We've let the contract on the property [owned by the Cumberland family] go and we've withdrawn our special exception petition," he said Monday. "We've decided to put all of our effort into finding a temporary location for the school."

There were numerous problems with building an access point to the school campus — which would have contained a freestanding chapel, gymnasium, library, baseball and track fields with bleachers, tennis courts and parking areas — from Port Tobacco Road, Schreyer said.

"The main issue facing us was the access to Route 6," he said. "The state wasn't granting the access in a timely fashion. It would greatly delay the opening of the school at that location."

Schreyer did not say that the Port Tobacco land was completely out as a location for the school, however.

"We're looking for another location to open up the school for the next few years," he said. "We have a few temporary locations in mind but no lease has been signed yet."

The academy will offer a classical curriculum for students in Grades 9 through 12, Schreyer said, adding that the high school would reflect a Catholic education. There is a great demand for a Catholic high school in Charles County because now students must travel to Bishop McNamara in Forestville or St. Mary's Ryken in Leonardtown, he said.

Schreyer said in an earlier interview that if the special exception had been granted to build the school and campus off Ann Harbor Drive the group would have taken pains to preserve Ellerslie because of its historical significance. The land also harbors African-American slave and American Indian grave sites, one of the county's oldest tobacco barns and several historic outbuildings, including a smokehouse, said Scott Hill, a ranger with the National Park Service who is the acting supervisor of the Thomas Stone Historic Site in Port Tobacco.

The withdrawal of the special exception request is good news to the people who would have lived near the academy. Their concerns stemmed from the amount of traffic the school would have generated and the possible impact the operation would have had on the historical elements of the property.

"We were never against the school," said John Lohr, who heads the newly formed Friends of Historic Ellerslie. The group was established to try to find a way to preserve the property from development. "We just felt that the school shouldn't be on this beautiful, historical property. It's a national treasure."

Lohr said that the oldest structure that was on the property was built in 1728. The house that stands there today was built in 1740 and an addition was built onto it in 1790.

The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Lohr said, adding that the Friends of Historic Ellerslie will continue to work with the state and federal governments to try to preserve the land.

"We're going ahead with this," he said. "We would like someone to take this property over. We would like to see if the National Park Service is interested in acquiring it. We're going to try to save this property."

Kurt Aspelin, who lives on Ann Harbor Drive near the land, said it is a wonderful piece of property that should be preserved.

"It would be a real travesty if that special exception was approved," he said. "Walking around the property reminds me of Mt. Vernon. It has beautiful big trees."

Deborah Engle, who also lives on Ann Harbor Drive, said that she is glad that Schreyer's group has abandoned the idea right now of pursuing the special exception, but even if the school is never built on that property it is still going to be a long struggle to save it from development.

"This is only the beginning," she said. "We've got a long road ahead of us. We've got to get help to preserve the property. It's excellent news that the special exception has been withdrawn, but that won't stop somebody else from wanting to develop it."

Robb Jones lives on property on Port Tobacco Road that adjoins the historic land.

"There was no way on earth that we were going to allow that academy to be built there," he said. "The negatives from building the school there far outweigh the positives. The place should be bought by the state or the [federal]Department of the Interior.

"I'm elated that the special exception has been withdrawn, but the fight is far from being over."

The land and historic buildings are treasures that should be preserved, Jones said.

"It's just incredible property," he said. "There's a grove of trees and some of them are 300 years old. The trees are so large that three grown adults can't join hands around the trees. It's a really, really great place."

nmcconaty@somdnews.com