Photographer captures Baltimore's defiant lone houses
Ben Marcin's book 'The Holdouts' showcases solitary homes in Baltimore and surrounding areas, from abandoned farmhouses to inner-city row houses. The photographs explore themes of home, time, and resistance to development. The book is published by Gost.
Marcin's photographs span more than a decade, from 2009 to 2021, capturing structures across Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. His subjects include inner-city row houses that escaped demolition, Eastern Shore farmhouses whose farming families have died or moved on, and temporary homeless encampments that rarely survive a full year. The images document homes connected to vastly different histories, from Revolutionary War-era lineage to the Great Migration of Black Americans northward.
The term "holdout" derives from real estate, describing property owners who refuse to sell to developers, sometimes forcing projects to be built around them. While Marcin notes none of his subjects are true real-estate holdouts—no shopping centers or casinos replaced them—they embody a broader resistance to change and development. Some homes remain occupied and maintained, while others stand abandoned as quiet monuments to past lives and shifting communities.
This photographic documentation may offer broader society a window into how marginalized Americans live and how communities transform over time. It could prompt viewers to consider the human stories behind abandoned structures and the social forces—migration, economic decline, addiction—that shape them. The book may also influence how urban planners and policymakers approach vacant properties,