Robinson Nature Center

Table of Contents

The James and Anne Robinson Nature Center is an 18-acre park next to the Middle Patuxent Environmental Area that offers nature education. This building is environmentally friendly, with geothermal heating/cooling, porous paving, solar panels, water saving systems, and other elements that have earned it the LEED Certified Platinum award. The Center offers over 450 activities each year, including field trips, public programmes, birthday parties, home schooling, and scouting. For decades, James and Anne Robinson looked after the property and prevented it from being developed, eventually arranging for its transfer to Howard County, Maryland for public use. The James & Anne Robinson Foundation continues to support the Center, which is owned and maintained by the Howard County Department of Recreation & Parks.

Robinson Nature Center History

The Nature Center was built on 18.3 of 22 acres of a 31-acre parcel that had been split from the Simpsonville Mill property by William and Rebecca Simpson and sold to Sophia Stern in 1891; subsequent sales were to Isaac Goldstein and Louis Abram in 1894, Eli Goldstein and family (Russian immigrants) in 1897, David and Agnes Johnson in 1902, Charles and Alice Baldwin in 1911, John Clifford and Martha Wall in 1914 (then 23.75 acres), and Harry and Rachel Saumenig in 1921. The property was purchased by James and Anne Robinson in 1957; it is adjacent to the modern Middle Patuxent Environmental Area and the core properties on Cedar Lane that were assembled to start the Rouse development of Columbia, Maryland. After decades of offers to buy the property for dense development, Anne Robinson approached the county in 2002 about passing the land to them for operation of a nature center. The purchase was settled on February 18, 2005, with funding from $1.7 million in county development excise taxes and $300,000 of Program Open Space money. The James & Anne Robinson Foundation, which Anne and her accountant created in 2003 to hold the property, returned $1 million of the proceeds of the sale as a contribution toward construction of the facility. Anne Robinson did not live to see the opening of the Nature Center; she died in 2005 at the age of 89. Her husband James had died in 1977.

In 2009, capital project funding of $1,010,000 was transferred from Meadowbrook Park, $250,000 from Rockburn Branch Park, $600,000 from Western Regional Park, $300,000 from Patapsco Female Institute, $600,000 from Cedar Lane School, $320,000 from Cedar Lane Athletic Improvements and Park Headquarters to build Robinson Nature Center. A total of $962,000 was budgeted for onsite road construction.

The center had its groundbreaking in 2009, although one Robinson family member expressed the family’s unhappiness about the project. After the groundbreaking, the remains of the Robinson’s mid-to-late 19th-century frame house adjacent to the Simpsonville Mill, in which Anne had lived until 2004 and which had been demolished in February 2005, were dismantled, as was a barn on the property. Wood from the barn was saved and, upon construction of the building, used to create siding and tables for an area in the front lobby dedicated to James & Anne Robinson as the “Legacy Room.” The Nature Center, designed by GWWO Architects and built by Forrester Construction Co and KCI Technologies, opened on September 10, 2011.

The stone stairs that once led to the front porch of the Robinson house still remain on the property in their original location. A covered pavilion was erected in 2014 on the site of the house with the footprint of the original house etched in stonework on the pavilion’s floor. In what was the front yard of the house, Anne Robinson had maintained planted gardens. Plants from these gardens were preserved, and a memorial garden was created around the original landscaping with the addition of native shrubs and trees, benches and a stone pathway.

Robinson Natrure Center Location

6692 Cedar Ln, Columbia, MD 21044, United States

http://www.howardcountymd.gov/recreation-parks/RobinsonNatureCenter

+14103130400

Driving Directions From Baltimore Maryland, USA

Take Light St and E Conway St to I-395 S 5 min (0.8 mi)
Head west on E Fayette St toward N Calvert St 489 ft
Turn left onto St Paul St 312 ft
Continue onto Light St 0.4 mi
Use the right 2 lanes to turn right onto E Conway St 0.3 mi
Take I-95 S and MD-32 W to Cedar Ln in Columbia. Take exit 17 from MD-32 W 19 min (19.3 mi)
Continue on Cedar Ln to your destination 2 min (0.4 mi)
Robinson Nature Center

Driving Directions From Frederick Maryland, USA

Get on I-70 E/US-40 E from W All Saints St and East St 6 min (1.6 mi)
Head west on E Patrick St toward N Market St 482 ft
Turn left at the 2nd cross street onto S Court St 0.2 mi
Turn left onto W All Saints St 0.3 mi
W All Saints St turns right and becomes East St 0.4 mi
At the traffic circle, continue straight to stay on East St 0.2 mi
Continue onto Buckeystown Pike 0.2 mi
Use the left 2 lanes to merge onto I-70 E/US-40 E via the ramp to Baltimore 0.3 mi
Follow I-70 E/US-40 E to MD-32 S in West Friendship. Take exit 80 from I-70 E/US-40 E 22 min (25.6 mi)
Follow MD-32 E to your destination in Columbia 16 min (12.1 mi)
Robinson Nature Center