It was designed by the Frederick Law Olmsted Brothers firm, as part of their Baltimore Plan of 1904 and 1921 for establishing stream valley parks and connecting boulevards[further explanation needed].
Johns Hopkins also occupies the building further east along 33rd Street, at Loch Raven Boulevard, formerly used by all-girls Eastern High School, founded 1844 until closed in 1986: a large, H-shaped, red brick, English Tudor Revival/Jacobethan styled building with limestone trim, constructed 1936–1938, matching a similar twin structure for the also still all-female Western High School on the westside on Gwynns Falls Parkway, built a decade earlier.
The academic campus on "Collegian Hill" replaced '"Abbottston'" in 1926–1928, the 1870s Victorian-era mansion and hilltop estate of Horace Abbott (1806-1887), the Canton waterfront iron works/foundry owner from the American Civil War era of 1861–1865.
The lake is fed by underground conduits from Loch Raven Reservoir, several miles north and the adjacent Montebello Water Filtration Plant, of Italianate style in dark red brick and green tile roofs built 1913.
Naval Academy at Annapolis (including hosting the Navy–Notre Dame football rivalry and the Army-Navy Game multiple times), and the Bears of nearby Morgan State University.
33rd Street was also home to two of the nation's oldest high school football rivalries, with the annual "Turkey Bowl" (Calvert Hall College vs. Loyola Blakefield / Loyola High School) and "City-Poly Game" (Baltimore City College vs. Baltimore Polytechnic Institute) played each year on Thanksgiving Day at Memorial Stadium.