Only in the Movies

Berlin, Md.'s, small town appeal may have wooed Hollywood, but there's more to this laid-back burg than meets the eye.

By Jim Duffy
Photography By Scott Suchman

Berlin Don’t let appearances fool you. When the sun rises high enough to drop a few rays between the storefronts on Berlin’s narrow Main Street, it lends a touch of gold to all that stately red brick, and the lower Eastern Shore town looks like a painting of an idyllic scene from the turn of the last century.

On mornings like these, Berliners don’t seem in any rush to start the work day. Strolling passers-by stop to exchange polite, old-fashioned greetings. Folks pause on streetside benches to peruse a morning paper while sipping coffee from paper cups. Stores simply aren’t going to open until all those coffees are finished and all that small talk winds down.

So it can come as something of a shock to find yourself a little while later in Sassafras Station, chatting with shopkeeper Fran Murray when she gets to boasting about Berlin: “This place,” she’ll assure you, “is really a party town!”

Uh-huh.

Berlin But Murray isn’t kidding. Life in this little burg, with its four-block-long Main Street, may not rival the summer-long bacchanalia in the nearby resort metropolis of Ocean City, but not all party towns play in the same league. To make her point for a skeptical visitor, Murray ticks off a few highlights from Berlin’s annual social calendar.

Early spring means live pig races down Main Street. Summer is the season of the Lawn Mower Parade and the Bathtub Races, the latter complete with brakes and steering wheels and strictly enforced minimum gallon capacities. Fall is for the Fiddlers Convention, and winter brings an arts festival and a dozen different Christmas events, ranging from traditional carriage rides to something dubbed Professor Horn’s Punch and Judy Show. “Why, there are only a couple of months out of the year that we don’t close off Main Street and throw a big party,” Murray says.

Over the last few years, more and more travelers have been stopping in Berlin and joining in all the fun. It would be nice to report that these visitors found their way to this corner of Worcester County because they heard about all the nice folks who live hereabouts and all the antiques shops and historical sites and restaurants they operate.

But the truth is, Berlin is an accidental tourist destination. Many, if not most, of the visitors making their way here do so for one of two reasons. Either, first, they’re spending a summer vacation on Ocean City’s beach, and they feel a need to flee the heat and the crowds. “We see a lot of people over here on Wednesdays and Thursdays with really bad sunburns,” says a laughing Terri Sexton of The Treasure Chest jewelry store.

Berlin Or, second, they’re not coming to see Berlin at all. They want to check out Hale, Md., the fictional home of Julia Roberts’ character in the 1999 film “Runaway Bride,” which was filmed here. Back when Berliners were dealing with all the disruption a Hollywood crew can cause, they hoped the movie might help bring in a few curious souls and give a boost to some local businesses. They never guessed just how much momentum a Hollywood hit could build for their town.

“Even now, people come in here every single day asking about that movie,” marvels Debbie Frene of Victorian Charm.

And so Berlin has come to live a double life - as itself on the one hand and as Hale on the other. At Victorian Charm, Frene sells bath products, candles, sleepwear, and handbags. But the listings for her shop in Chamber of Commerce brochures tout first and foremost the fact that it did big-screen duty as a “Runaway” bridal boutique.

Similarly, a director’s chair stands at the counter at Rayne’s Reef Luncheonette, providing an oddly glamorous counterpoint to the ragged crowd of old-timers who belly up to the counter every day at lunchtime. At night, the store windows on Main Street all go dark, save for an illuminated “Runaway” poster glowing eerily in the window of Town Center Antiques.

Berlin Just about everyone in town is selling “Runaway to Berlin” T-shirts. If you happen to do just that this summer, the place to start getting acquainted with the real Berlin is the Calvin B. Taylor House Museum. With its distinctive green shutters and weather-beaten sign, the Federal-period home is impossible to miss as you approach downtown on Main Street.

Administrator Susan Taylor leads tours through an idiosyncratic collection that runs from the sublime to the ridiculous as it chronicles Berlin’s story. The 300-acre Burley Plantation operated here in the seventeenth century. Later, a hotel sprang up to serve colonial travelers making their way along the Philadelphia Post Road. The best explanation anyone’s come up with for how the town got its name is simply that the “Burleigh Inn” got whittled down to “Berlin” as years went by.

The museum is named for the man who founded the still-thriving (and still-independent) Taylor Bank in 1890. And as our guide is a Berlin native who bears the Taylor surname, it’s hard to refrain from asking the obvious. “No, I’m not related,” she sighs, “but someday I might have to start making something up when I hear that question.”

The Taylor House is graced with lots of original architectural details, some impressive stained glass, and antique furnishings culled from historic homes and businesses nearby. Upstairs, the Pitts Alcove celebrates a famous land surveyor, while another corner honors Dr. Holland, a longtime doctor. Perhaps the oddest local, whose life is also on display, is “Uncle” Ned France, who ran a variety store after trying his hand as a magician. In a much-touted feat of derring-do, Uncle Ned drew a big crowd to watch him drive down Main Street wearing a blindfold - proof, perhaps, that Berlin has always been a party town.

The Taylor House doubles as a town social center. It hosts monthly Sunday night Concerts on the Lawn between June and September. Community groups often use the Harrison Room inside for meetings and get-togethers. If the room’s free, check out the mementos on the walls of the family that operated the world’s largest mail order nursery catalog back in the 1920s. Their story took a Hollywood turn in the person of Linda Harrison, the actress who starred as Nova in “Planet of the Apes.” You can see her here on the cover of a 1970 issue of Cosmopolitan and there shaking hands with then-President Nixon. Two of the Harrisons still show up here every week for a friendly game of cards, Taylor says.

Berlin Linda Harrison is one point of Berlin’s unlikely celebrity triangle. The second belongs to Naval hero Stephen Decatur, who was born here. Though the house where he was born is gone, Decatur Park bears his name. Berlin is also the birthplace of Charles Albert Tindley (1851-1933), the self-taught African-American composer who penned such spiritual classics as “We Shall Overcome” and “Stand By Me.” Unfortunately, there’s no site around town devoted to Tindley’s artistry, but Berlin does hold an African-American Heritage Festival every September.

Head south from the Taylor House to browse Main Street’s collection of nearly two dozen stores. Traditional antiques are the biggest shopping draw; collectors with more focused tastes will also find model trains at Dennison’s Trackside Hobbies and chicken-related collectibles at Something Different.

At Sassafras Station, Fran Murray offers garden accessories and unique gifts. The new JJ Fish Studio showcases decorative silver “bubble wands” crafted by owners John and Judy Fisher. Just off Main Street on William Street is Ta-Da, where owner Patty Falck’s hand-painted glassware is the most impressive catch.

There’s nary an empty storefront in sight along Main Street. Locals date the beginnings of downtown’s renaissance to the early 1980s, when the community rallied against plans to turn a run-down apartment house into a parking lot. Instead, the old building became the Taylor House Museum. Next in line for rescue work was the 1895 Atlantic Hotel. Refurbished in the mid-1980s, it’s now impressively true to its Victorian roots. Decorated in lush reds and deep greens, the hotel’s seventeen rooms offer huge windows overlooking Main Street, not to mention four-poster beds and clawfoot tubs. With both a formal, white-tablecloth dining room and the casual Drummer’s Cafe, the Atlantic is Berlin’s prime dining option. A couple blocks away is the homey Goober’s, which came under new ownership last year and earns some enthusiastic recommendations from locals.

Berlin The final phase of the downtown renaissance is still under way. It was with the arrival of Kate Hastings and her Globe Theater that Berlin began taking on an artsy flavor. The Globe is a one-of-a-kind operation - equal parts coffee shop, cafe, concert hall, bookstore, gift shop, wine bar, gourmet food store, and art gallery. It stands on one side of the Atlantic Hotel; at the other end of the hotel is a gallery run by the Worcester County Arts Council. “We’re all about stepping up the presence of the arts here,” says council board member Lisa Fitzpatrick, an architect and interior designer. “If we can continue to do that, we’ll get even more people into town and open up everything.”

Berlin is about to enjoy another brush with Hollywood fame, thanks to “Tuck Everlasting,” the latest film shot downtown. Starring William Hurt, Ben Kingsley, and Sissy Spacek, it will be released later this year. That “Tuck” may turn Berlin’s double life into a triple one is a prospect that doesn’t seem to bother many Berliners. Merchants enjoy selling movie memorabilia as much as any other item on their shelves. And folks around town seem to genuinely like telling strangers about their close encounters with movie stars. Besides, it really doesn’t matter what brings folks into town in the first place. “If we can get ‘em in here just once, that’s all we’ll need,” Debbie Frene says. “Once they see what we have here, they’ll want to come back.”

And when they do, they’ll be coming to see the real Berlin, not the accidental one.

Freelance writer Jim Duffy writes from Baltimore.

Locals’ Guide to Berlin

Morning Treats:

DelVecchio’s Bakery
120 N. Main Street
410-641-2300
Pick up pastries at this Italian bakery and then find a Main Street park bench or head over to Decatur Park for an al fresco breakfast.

Globe Theatre
12 Broad Street
410-641-0784
Sit and savor the fancy coffees or order to go while perusing the household gifts and books.

Here Comes a Regular:

Rayne’s Reef Luncheonette
10 N. Main Street
410-641-2131
From the formstone exterior to the classic diner touches inside, this lunch spot is as old-fashioned as they come.

Berlin Hardware
106 N. Main Street
410-641-1414
Main Street may have changed over the last couple of decades, but from the look of things, nothing has changed in here since about 1964.

Town Center Antiques
1 N. Main & 113 N. Main Streets
410-629-1895
Shopping among 125 different dealers can generate a serious thirst. Fortunately, this dual-location store offers an in-store coffee shop complete with ice cream and other treats.

Evening Excursions:

Globe Theatre
12 Broad Street
410-641-0784
At a minimum, you’ll be able to sip a fine wine. If your timing’s right, you’ll be able to take in a folk concert or other event. Don’t forget about the gallery upstairs.

The Atlantic Hotel
2 N. Main Street
410-641-3589
Thursday is half-price prime rib night at Drummer’s Cafe. Expect to enjoy some classic piano tunes to boot.

Goober’s
16 Pitts Street
410-641-0366
Locals are fond of the down-home restaurant. Keno players and sports fans prefer the long bar with the big TV at the end.