 The property was sold the same year for $35,000 to brothers Harry D. and Fulton R. Gordon from Bailey's Crossroads, who subdivided a tract on the Howard county side of the Patuxent river to form "North Laurel".The business office for the development was operated out of an office on 918F Street in Washington as Gordon & Bro, marketing real estate in the "suburbs" between Baltimore and Washington.By 1894, the Gordon brothers sold a portion of "North Laurel" for $64,000 to the Key Brothers & Company to finance the purchase of the Lincoln Hotel in Washington D.C. Fulton Gordon divorced shortly afterward and declared himself broke.