The map says Essex, but the house reads Gatsby.

Bauernschmidt Manor, surrounded by water views on all sides from its top floor, is a throwback to the days when ladies and gentlemen dressed for dinner — and dinner was oysters Rockefeller, terrapin soup and multiple courses of freshly hunted game birds.

Its foyers, with velvet settees and elaborately tiled fireplaces, cry out for a party, which is what this house built for a beer baron has been — off and on — for more than a century. Its Italianate accents include a cupola with a Chesapeake view, a Juliet balcony overlooking a saltwater pool, long windows and a breathtaking split wooden staircase that meets in the middle to continue the ascent.

Had F. Scott Fitzgerald seen this place when he lived in Baltimore, he might have modeled East Egg after East Essex.

Alas, the mansion’s many charms have not delivered the thing the owners most want — a deal. They’ve priced their beloved mansion to sell, at $799,900. And yet, finding a buyer hasn’t been easy. It’s been on the market for about a year. During that time, far smaller houses in Essex have sold for more.

Bauernschmidt Manor, which is move-in ready, has thoughtful updates like a modern kitchen. The current owners are even conveying most of the furniture in a sale. That has not sweetened the deal — because, the owners say, the house can be intimidating. After all, 12-foot ceilings and ruby-red bedroom walls are not exactly McMansion.

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The restoration has been “phenomenal,” said Adam Light of Sotheby’s International Realty, who’s handling the listing for the second time. Anyone who buys the home is not only getting a place to live, he said, but inheriting a trophy that the waterfront community cherishes.

Phoebe Evans Letocha, chair of the Baltimore County Landmarks Preservation Commission, said she’s familiar with the property because the commission has approved repairs in recent years.

“I hope it finds the right buyer who will maintain this beautiful historical Baltimore County landmark,” she said.

Realtor Michelle Lafalaise has been keeping an eye on the place, hoping one of her clients will be a good fit for the home.

With homes like this, I always imagine the dances, the parties, the girls walking down the stairways with their first fancy dress on. Just the history of the home. The memories. All of that helps me see if my clients would be able to take that history and make it their own.”

Realtor Michelle Lafalaise, who has her eye on the home for possible clients.

Though comparables are hard to come by for such an unusual property, it’s priced well, she said. Other homes of its size in Middle River and Essex often sell for far more, but some also have water access, and the manor does not. Lafalaise said water access won’t matter to every buyer, though.

“With homes like this, I always imagine the dances, the parties, the girls walking down the stairways with their first fancy dress on. Just the history of the home. The memories,” she said. “All of that helps me see if my clients would be able to take that history and make it their own.”

The most recent owners added many touches to the 4,700-square-foot manor, and said they never planned to leave her. (They refer to the house as a “her,” as befits her Grand Dame aesthetic.) But plans change.

Originally called “Planters Point,” the land that became the neighborhood known as Bauernschmidt Manor dates to 1658. Capt. Thomas Cornwalleys, one of the first commissioners of the Province of Maryland, originally owned all 829 acres. By 1730, the land passed to the Stansbury Family, who built the original Ballestone Mansion in Rocky Point Park near the golf course. Former U.S. presidents Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison are said to have hunted ducks on the peninsula.

Cleveland even wrote one of his presidential acceptance speeches on the property, according to Paul M. Blitz, the historian for the Heritage Society of Essex and Middle River.

Philanthropist Enoch Pratt owned the land from 1872 to 1878, at which point he sold it to Planter’s Point Ducking Club. Eventually, Frederick Bauernschmidt bought the property and built the manor.

Frederick Bauernschmidt came from a strong German brewing tradition. His father, George, emigrated from Bavaria and started the Bauernschmidt Beer Company in Baltimore City in 1864. George sold the business, and Frederick started the Frederick Bauernschmidt Brewery in 1899. It later became the American Brewery, and he kept it running until impending Prohibition convinced him to sell it in 1919. At the time, he was brewing 350,000 barrels of beer a year, more than all other city breweries combined.

Bauernschmidt’s name has long been associated with beer, but he made most of his fortune as an early investor in Baltimore County real estate. When he owned the manor, he held many events there, and used the land to work out his horses. Soprano Rosa Ponselle, the first American opera singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera without European experience or formal training, would practice her arias at the manor, according to Blitz.

Bauernschmidt bottles still wash up on the shores from Hog Pen Creek and Middle River, according to neighbors.

Frederick died in 1933. His wife Agnes kept the house another decade. After that, though, heirs and subsequent owners couldn’t afford to maintain it and sold off the land in lots around the house. Developers built a neighborhood of modest homes with a private beach. The main street is called Bauernschmidt, and the neighborhood of a few dozen homes Bauernschmidt Manor.

The mansion’s footprint kept shrinking — its backyard is 3/4 of an acre today — and the home fell into disrepair. Even then, it was still a party house, if only because neighborhood teens would go there to drink.

The rescue began in the late 1980s, when a succession of owners restored the house.

The manor has, for more than 35 years, been on the county’s historic landmarks list, which means no owner can change the exterior. For a while, it was a bed and breakfast. One owner restored the wood floors, stairwell and trim; another updated all of the mechanicals, the windows, the balconies and the tiles and modernized the bathrooms.

The result is as turnkey as a 120-year-old house can be.

The Bauernschmidts donated $12 million to multiple charities, including Union Memorial Hospital, the Maryland School for the Blind, the Maryland School for the Deaf, and various German immigrant benevolent societies. Most of his real estate went into a trust for charities, but not the Essex house.

While the beer baron eschewed recognition for his contributions, he was not so modest in his own home. Frederick Bauernschmidt’s embellished initials are embedded in one of the bathroom’s tiles, under one of the eaves on the balcony, and on the bed-and-breakfast sign, which still hangs in a stairwell.

The claw-foot tub, specifically made for him, remains in the home. It’s extra large, befitting a beer baron who was larger than life.

Lafalaise hopes she has the opportunity to bring the right buyer by. But if not her, she knows, someone else will.

“The right buyer is going to come along,” she said. “It just might take some time.”