On the NCR trail in northern Baltimore County, there is a whimsical place, a “gnome-man’s land,” if you will. Gnome Hill is a must-see destination for hikers and bikers alike.
Get on the trail at White Hall, head north, and after a roughly 1-mile walk with bikes whizzing by on the left, Gnome Hill comes into view. It’s about seven feet high and is loaded with gnome statues, dozens of them.
Cyclist Mark Schmidt remembers when he and his girlfriend, Sue Donaldson, saw it for the first time several years ago.
“Her entire house is covered in gnomes in front of the house,” Schmidt said of Donaldson. “And she came down here and slammed on the brakes and I didn’t know what it was. Then I looked to the left and I was like, ‘Wow.’”
Gnome Hill also has Gnome puns aplenty. That’s a thing by the way. Google it.
There are signs that say things like Gnomeland Security, Chillin with my Gnomies, Gnome on the Range. Gnome Depot.
Sue Donaldson went looking for one of her favorites.
“Where’s Gnomeo and Juliet?” Donaldson asked. “They were always over here.”
The creator of Gnome Hill is Gene Stiffler.
He said, “I kept telling people who would ask, I’d say, ‘It’s been over 20 years.’ I don’t know how many years I’ve been telling them that, way over 20 I’d guess now.”
Stiffler said he started with just a few gnomes and kept adding them. Then during COVID, he stopped going to auctions where he picked them up at a “gnominal” price. But no worries. People by then were dropping gnomes off.
They’re magical after all.
Stiffler said, “Sometimes they’ll put them on the porch there or in my truck. Sometimes they just put it out here.”
Stiffler also runs a concession stand, The Old Glory Oasis. It’s on the honor system and, as cyclist Deion Kasiam discovered, cash only.
“Oh, like snacks and stuff, yeah, I’ll buy some,” Kasiam told Stiffler. “You take a card at all?”
“Nope,” said Stiffler. “Small business.”
Gene Stiffler said he was named for Gene Autrey, the singing cowboy who shot to fame in the 1930s. A few of his gnomes clue you in that he’s a country music lover. Like Willie Gnelson. Also Buck Gnowens. And the Soggy Bottom Boys from the Coen brothers’ movie, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Stiffler said those gnomes are a personal favorite.
“I took three gnomes that looked like any of the other ones, and they had garden tools in their hands and I figured, well, I might as well make a musical group out of them,” Stiffler said. “I took the tools away and built the stage. And later on I decided to do the backdrop of the Grand Ole Opry.”
Jerry German stopped his bike at Gnome Hill to take pictures.
“I’m trying to get my kids to come this far, so I like to take pictures when I get up here and entice them,” German said.
So far, no takers.
Stiffler is 84 and has no plans to stop being his gnomes’ keeper. He repaints and repairs them. He cuts back brush so they can be seen. He says people have volunteered to scale the hill and do the work but no, thanks.
“I just don’t want them to go up there and then fall, and then they’ll own it,” Stiffler said.
Nonie Detrick, who biked down from Pennsylvania, said the gnomes make her smile.
“Thank you for brightening our day,” She told Stiffler.
“Well, that’s why I do it,” he said. “I don’t do it for myself.”
So on the NCR trail anyway, all roads lead to Gnome.
