About Woodlawn Estates

Located in Port Deposit, Maryland. Woodlawn Estates is a private land lease community. Woodlawn Estates is currently owned and operated by the fourth generation of original owners.

Click here to read what the Washington Examiner had to say about Port Deposit, Maryland.

History

In 1954, the Bainbridge Naval Training Center was operating at peak force. Located on the cliff overlooking the village of Port Deposit on the Susquehanna River, the base housed 55,000 naval personnel at its peak. Housing for the sailors was confined to the base during World War II. However, after the war the technical schools that were housed at the base required longer station time, which led to a need for family housing.

Three miles from the base there was a two hundred and eighty acre farm with seventy five acres invested in peach and apple trees known as Woodlawn. The farm operation was manned by Mr. Sherrard and two of his five sons. The orchards were not as productive as they desired but they persevered.

One early spring Saturday a Chief Petty Officer from the base drove out to the farm and approached the owner with a proposition. His wife and two children lived in Boston and he was to be stationed at Bainbridge for a year.  It was not possible for him to travel to Boston on a weekend and be back in time to report on Monday morning. So he came up with an alternative life style for himself and his family but he needed a local land owner to cooperate. He owned a twenty foot by eight foot Air Stream mobile home that he and his wife used for camping. The Chief asked Mr. Sherrard if he would allow him to park the Air Stream in a field on the far side of the apple orchard so he could bring his wife and children down from Boston to stay for the summer. Mr. Sherrard agreed.

The Chief’s family arrived and it was not long before the Chief was inviting his friends to visit with him and his family at the orchard sight.  The visitations spawned more interest in providing a location for others to park their “trailers.” One after another came until Mr. Sherrard could see that this was the beginning of more than just a summer camp. He drilled the first well and put in a septic system.  After the infrastructure was in, the homes grew in size with the average being eight by thirty.

The camp sight became a “park” For the first ten years, all of the tenants were military. Over time, mobile home living became popular with civilians and the park filled with a diverse population.  The park could not run itself. It required management and labor. This took the family’s time away from the orchard. The capital gain from the park was proportionately increasing as the return from the orchard decreased, resulting in the orchard being phased out.

Time has brought many changes to the original family plot. It is no longer an orchard, but all of the streets in the community are named for apples. The dwellings are no longer referred to as trailers. They are homes. What started out as a trailer park is now a land lease community. The Bainbridge Naval Training Center has been closed since March 31, 1976 However, the manufactured housing community whose start was influenced by it has continued and is operated by the fourth generation of the original owners. It has evolved from Woodlawn Trailer Park to Woodlawn Mobile Home Park and is known today as Woodlawn Estates, LLC.