Dupont Circle Revisited a Walker’S Tour
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Dupont Circle Revisited A Walker’s Tour In Celebration of Our 25th Year 1978-2003 The L’Enfant Trust Voluntary Preservation through Conservation Easements. Washington, D.C. Dupont Circle West Dupont Circle East 1. Stewart’s Castle * 14. The Ingalls House 30. The Robert Hitt House 1913 Massachusetts Avenue 1780 Massachusetts Avenue 1706 New Hampshire 2. The Longworth House 15. The Moore House 31. The Thomas Nelson 2009 Massachusetts Avenue 1746 Massachusetts Avenue Page House 1759 R Street 3. The Phillips House 16. The Wilkins House 1600 21st Street 1700 Massachusetts Avenue 32. The Belmont House 17. The McCormick Apartments 1618 New Hampshire Avenue 4. The Townsend House 1785 Massachusetts Avenue 2121 Massachusetts Avenue 33. The Whittemore House 18. The Wadsworth House 1526 New Hampshire Avenue 5. The Miller House 1801 Massachusetts Avenue 2201 Massachusetts Avenue 34. The Leiter House * 19. The Boardman House 1500 New Hampshire Avenue 6. The Anderson House 1801 P Street, NW 2118 Massachusetts Avenue 20. The Patterson House 7. The Walsh-McLean House 15 Dupont Circle 2020 Massachusetts Avenue 21. The Hitt House * 8. The Beale House 1501 New Hampshire Avenue 2012 Massachusetts Avenue 22. The Williams House 9. The Blaine House 1531 New Hampshire Avenue 2000 Massachusetts Avenue 23. Dalzell and Blair Houses 10. The Heurich House 1605 & 1607 New Hampshire 1307 New Hampshire Avenue Avenue 11. The Hearst House * 24. The Butler House 1400 New Hampshire Avenue 1744 R Street 12. The Edson Bradley House * 25. The Carter House 1375 Connecticut Avenue 1701 New Hampshire Avenue 13. The Hopkins-Miller Houses * 26. The Grant House Dupont Circle at Connecticut 1711 New Hampshire Avenue and Massachusetts Avenues 27. The Lamar House 1751 New Hampshire Avenue 28. The Dove House 1740 New Hampshire Avenue 29. The Johnson House 1716 New Hampshire Avenue * This symbol marks ghosts of the grand mansions that once existed around Dupont Circle. Dupont Circle Revisited: A Walker’s Tour 1 Letter from the President This pamphlet is a republication of the Dupont Circle Walking Tour which The L'Enfant Trust first published in 1984. The original text, written by Washington writer Linda Cashdan, has been left intact, although in this printing we have added some photographs to show what the various sites look like today. The viability of the original text is a tribute both to Linda's delightful storytelling and to the effectiveness of preservation attitudes and efforts over the past two decades. Many of the historic buildings which are described in this pamphlet but no longer stand on their sites were swept away in the waves of development in and before the 1970's. We are gratified that since the first printing of the tour, there are so few new "ghosts" of the city's architectural history. Since its founding in 1978, The L’Enfant Trust has pioneered the use of conservation easements to preserve the streetscapes and architectural treasures of Washington, D.C.’s historic neighborhoods. The Trust's attractive bronze plaques, many of which you will see as you take this walking tour, now guard nearly 500 properties throughout historic Washington. We are pleased that we can now again provide our neighbors and our visitors with this guide to Dupont Circle, one of Washington's most vibrant historic neigh - borhoods, as part of the Trust's celebration of its 25th anniversary. Enjoy! Carol B. Goldman, President The L'Enfant Trust Dupont Circle Revisited: A Walker’s Tour 2 Dupont Circle: A Brief History Dupont Circle today is an office address, a shopping its wide avenues and broad vistas, to convey the ambitious district, a home to foreign embassies, executive clubs and intentions of the young nation. art galleries, a browser’s paradise, a tourist attraction, a Today, Washington is the city of L’Enfant’s majestic metro stop, and a residential neighborhood inhabited design laid out on a grand scale, a city of square blocks by Washingtonians of old money, new money, and no and broad diagonal avenues that intersect at beautiful money… all of whom love it dearly and view it differently. circles and parks. For a long time, however, L’Enfant's Some see Dupont Circle as a prime site for future city vision seemed pretentious to visitors from the cultivated growth; others want to protect its link to the past. For capitals of Europe and the more sophisticated northern others still, it is simply a nice place to read poetry or cities of New York and Boston. After all, in those days play backgammon on the grass in the spring. Washingtonians were still shooting game in fields and All would agree that it is a pivotal geographic location, marshes within view of the White House. the intersection of key transportation arteries into and The city’s growth was slow throughout the first half out of Washington, and an unofficial divider between of the nineteenth century. Members of Congress, foreign “downtown” and “north of town.” officials, and businessmen came to Washington as transients, Dupont Circle is pivotal in a historical sense too. staying in hotels and rooming houses on Capitol Hill Washington, the city of culture, sophistication and power, while they transacted their business and then going home. was nurtured here. Indeed, Washington, D.C. owes much Live in Washington? A chimera of a city, an impossible of its present day personality to Dupont Circle. To vision overlaid on farmland and primeval forests? Never! understand why, let’s go back to the beginning… The Civil War changes all that. The war capital was Washington was the first national capital developed the nation’s nerve center. Its population increased dramati - according to a comprehensive “master plan.” Capital cities cally, and all America looked to Washington. Afterwards, previously emerged as the centers of government due the capital grew as America flourished. Foreign countries to their economic development. But Washington was wanted to establish their presence here. Wealthy Americans selected as a new location, a ten-mile undeveloped square serving in Congress or involved in financial dealings with chosen to be the political center of a new nation, a the government sought appropriately lavish residences. compromise between the country’s north and south. This new growth pushed the bounds of the city to After choosing the site, George Washington chose the northwest where a group of real estate speculators Pierre L’Enfant, a French engineer who had served in known as the “California Syndicate” – which included the Continental Army, to design a plan for the new mining industrialist Curtis Hillyer, California miner capital. His city plan evoked grandeur. L’Enfant drew on Thomas Sunderland, and Senator William Stewart of his boyhood memories of the magnificence of Versailles, Nevada who also had western mining interests- began Dupont Circle Revisited: A Walker’s Tour 3 buying land for 60 cents a foot in what is now known as as “Pacific Circle,” named for its westerly location. A park Dupont Circle Historic District. At the time, however, this was cited there in 1874. In 1882, the park was officially area was called “The Slashes,” an undeveloped tract of hills named “Dupont Circle” for Admiral Samuel Francis and swamps divided from Washington by Slash Run DuPont, a hero of the Mexican and American Civil Wars, which rose near Florida Avenue and flowed into Rock and in 1884, a bronze statue was erected to honor him. Creek at P Street Beach. This hilly wet marshland boasted In 1875, Great Britain constructed the city’s first a brickyard, a slaughterhouse and an occasional shack, but foreign-owned residence just south of the Circle at for the “California Syndicate” it was a perfect location for Connecticut Avenue and N Street. Until then, the the city’s expansion. diplomatic corps had been housed in rented properties. Alexander Shepherd, Governor of the Territory of This prestigious building gave the area the social seal of Columbia, also owned land in “The Slashes,” and his approval and Dupont Circle quickly became the address extensive public works program from 1871 to 1874 of distinction in Washington, D.C. The residences of helped to make “The West End” a profitable investment. government leaders, foreign dignitaries, prosperous Streets were graded and paved, sewers were installed, and local businessmen, and rich Americans from all over the swamps were filled in. Even Slash Run was banished the country, as well as those of Washington’s growing underground to the sewer system. number of bureaucrats, made Dupont Circle the neighborhood of Washington’s elite. Mansions lined By the Civil War, most of the streets and avenues in the avenues and the Circle itself, while spacious but Dupont Circle had been laid out according to L’Enfant's smaller houses rose along the narrow numbered and plan. Early maps marked the intersection of P Street, lettered grid streets. Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire Avenue This wealth brought a surge of development and between 1895 and 1910, many of the original Victorian houses were razed in favor of the more fashionable Beaux Arts style mansions. Though the architecture was changing, high social standards prevailed. A Dupont Circle Address still meant money, power, and social status. In the late 1920’s, commercial development started to occur, changing the spirit of the neighborhood. Many of the original residences that graced the neighborhood Courtesy of the Washingtoniana Collection at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library. were torn down and replaced with larger buildings. Around 1880, the view of Connecticut Avenue to Dupont Circle from the broad intersection of N Street included the ornate Second Empire With the 1930’s and the Depression, many residents British Legation (on the left) built in 1875.