The Story of the Green Fairfield Inn & Suites
The Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Baltimore-Inner Harbor is located on an historically rich site in historic Jonestown, on the Lombard Street corner of S. President Street just a block from Little Italy's front door. The hotel is on the route of the Baltimore Heritage Walk, a 3.2-mile walking trail that connects four neighborhoods and four centuries' worth of historic sites and museums in a compact area that includes the Inner Harbor, Little Italy, Historic Jonestown, and City Center.
In 1787, during an era when beer brewing was Jonestown's biggest industry, Claggett's Brewery was built on the site. Twenty-seven years later, next-door neighbor and seamstress Mary Pickersgill sat in the brewery's malt room to put the final stitches on a flag that inspired Francis Scott Key's famous poem, "Defence of Fort McHenry." Key's poem, which described the flag as "the star-spangled banner," officially became America's national anthem on March 3, 1931 via a congressional resolution.
In more recent years, the site was home to the Baltimore Brewing Company, locally famous for brewing DeGroen's beer. The grain silo and one of the brewing tanks from the Baltimore Brewing Company were salvaged and together are being used in the Fairfield Inn & Suites to collect and store rainwater for landscape irrigation.
This famous spot occupying the corner of Lombard and S. Presidents Street once again made history in July 2009 when it opened as Maryland's first new LEED-certified hotel.
