Coworking with Friends of The Web in Patterson Park means an elevator ride to the rooftop deck [PHOTOS]

The Friends of The Web have one sweet view of Baltimore.
From their rooftop deck atop their rowhouse near Patterson Park, the four guys behind this web application design and development firm overlook a swath of downtown to the west. The three-story house they moved into in April actually serves dual purposes, doubling as Friends’ coworking space—on the top floor—and the house where, you know, they live. One of the bedrooms sits above the garage in the back. The rooftop deck has ample seating, potted pepper plants and a Wi-Fi connection. And there’s an elevator inside.
Not bad for four guys in their early twenties.

Lucky for other techies, Friends of The Web—made up of 24-year-old Andy Mangold and Josh Hepworth, Dan Martens and Anthony Mattox, all 23—opens up their house to fellow developers and startups as a coworking space during the day. “We like to have extra space for cool people to hang out,” Hepworth says.
See the photos below. To cowork with Friends of The Web, e-mail or tweet them.
Mangold, Hepworth and Martens are originally from West Chester, Pa., while Mattox was born in Baltimore but spent middle and high school in Atlanta. Both Mangold and Mattox came to Baltimore by way of the Maryland Institute College of Art, where they studied graphic design and interactive design, respectively. (It was through Mangold that Hepworth and Martens met Mattox.) Hepworth and Martens both studied at Penn State University, although Martens completed just two years there before deciding to ditch college for a career spent coding.
“There’s no purpose to keep paying for something that’s not really useful,” says Martens.
Around December 2010, the idea to start some company together was germinating. By April 2011, Friends of The Web was born.
Today, Friends develops and designs web applications in addition to some iOS development work and other pet projects, like the Wikiweb app released last month and Mangold’s Frame app developed at the Art Bytes hackathon at the Walters Art Museum.

The view of downtown Baltimore

And how you get that view.

To work to to watch television? That is the question.

For those days when the stairs are just too much.