Baseball great Cal Ripken, Jr. purchased a picturesque new estate in Annapolis, Maryland, this year. The former shortstop known as the ‘Iron Man’ spent $3.9 million on the property, which is known as Bridgewater, and crowned with a distinguished Colonial Revival-style house that dates to 1937.

The waterfront property boasts 250 feet of frontage on the Severn River, and includes a deep-water dock. Its location allows for an unusually sylvan quality, and splendid woods-and-waters views from the 5,055 square-foot, five-bedroom house.

The home’s living style is both casual and formally traditional; panoramic wallpaper, a neoclassical fireplace that contrasts black marble with a white mantel, a wood-paneled library, and a few cottagey design elements all express the home. Fundamentally, its form of relaxed lifestyle is blue-blooded, however, and the warm-weather outdoor living areas are classically East Coast blueblood: an outdoor porch, a substantial pergola, a striped awning, gardens, lawns, slate patio, and brick walkways accumulate into a delightfully postcard-ready version of ease.

Ripkin, a Maryland native, played for the Baltimore Orioles for the entirety of his career. The job with the organization was in some sense a legacy; his father, too, had been an Oriole.