The James Lawrence Kernan Hospital was built between 1860 and 1867 as Radnor Park, a two-story, five-bay, Victorian mansion. In the first decades of the 20th century, alterations were carried out to the original house which made the house over into a combination of the Greek Revival and Colonial Revival styles. The additional surrounding 1920s-era hospital structures were built in a style that blends well with the old historic mansion and its grounds.
James Lawrence Kernan (1838–1912), was a theater manager and philanthropist of the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras in Baltimore. He had the landmark Kernan Hotel (later renamed the Congress Hotel) on West Franklin Street. The "rathskeller" in the basement of the hotel (later also known as the "marble bar") was the site of the first "jazz band" music in the town when it opened in 1903.[2]
CBS television news reporter/correspondent Kimberly Dozier, following her injuries from an improvised explosive device in the Iraq War in 2006, spent time at Kernan recovering.[3]
