Rouse house

The longtime home of James and Patricia Rouse on the banks of Wilde Lake in Columbia, where the worldknown affordable housing advocates danced together to tunes from a stereo next to their living room fireplace, is up for sale.

It is thehome’s first timeonthemarket since the newlyweds purchased it for $95,000 more than 38 years ago.

“They would put music on in here and dance. They had this incredible record collection,” said Maria Gamper, Patricia Rouse’s daughter, as she showed off the modern living area that her mother and stepfather shared for more than two decades. “This was their retreat.”

There was brief talk of turning the home into a museum dedicated to the Rouses, Gamper said. But a museum is not what Jim and Patty, as they were known to friends and colleagues, would havewanted, she said.

The down-to-earth couple did not maintain a perfectly manicured home ready for elegant cocktail soirees. The Rouses covered the walls of their houseonWaterfowlTerracewalls with pictures, filling the rooms with the scent of JamesRouse’s terrapin soup and stacking piles of paperwork on desks in the kitchen.

“Theycollected everything. Itwas just full of so much of Columbia,” said Gamper, who is administering her mother’s estate. James Rouse died in 1996 and Patricia Rouse died in March. Many of their treasures have since been cleared out of the home and placed in Columbia’s archives. James Rouse was the urban development ROUSE HOUSE,

KARL MERTON FERRON/BALTIMORE SUN PHOTOS Wilde Lake is visible from the living room (top photo) and every other room, and James Rouse prized the home’s signature yellow front doors.

The home was built in the late 1960s for the family of a Rouse Co. executive; the Rouses moved in a few years later.