It was originally built for James Lawrence Kernan (1838-1912) as a vaudeville house, in 1903, adjacent to his Hotel Kernan (later renamed the Congress Hotel).
It included a rathskeller in the basement with some of the first music in town from a "jazz band" led by John Ridgley, at what became known later as "The Marble Bar", a musical venue even up to the 1980s.
In the 1950s, the old Maryland Theatre was razed and temporarily replaced by a parking lot for the last days of the hotel.
He was also the founder of the James Lawrence Kernan Hospital at his "Radnor Park" estate in northwest Baltimore's Forest Park neighborhood near Woodlawn in suburban Baltimore County.
The old Kernan/Congress Hotel was renovated and restored in 2004-2005 as apartments and condos by the locally famous architect and construction firm, Streuver Brothers, Eccles and Rouse as one of their last renewal projects of three decades in the city.