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Cleve Park Hist. Dist.-REVISE 12/14/05 10:28 AM Page C4 W A S H I N G T O N D C C L E V E L A N D P A R K H I S T O R I C D I S T R I C T Cleve Park Hist. Dist.-REVISE 12/14/05 10:28 AM Page C2 CLEVELAND P A R K H I S T O R I C D I S T R I C T “Cleveland Park is the prettiest suburb of Washington... there is every blessing of fresh country air, plenty of elbow room, woods and fields, peacefulness, coolness in summer and comfort in winter.” These words, written to describe Cleveland Park in a May 1903 Washington Times article, ring remarkably true today. The tree-shaded streets of this suburb-in-the-city are lined with a variety of turn-of-the- century frame houses, whose generous front porches offer cooling breezes and still serve as outdoor rooms and neighborhood gathering places. The streets themselves follow the natural contours of the terrain, rising in a modified grid between the area’s elevational lowpoint at the edge of Rock Creek valley, to its highpoint at Mount St. Alban. Within this densely developed residential core with mixed-use commercial development along the arteries, Cleveland Park is also home to the Melvin Hazen Park and several large estates whose surrounding acreage contribute to the bucolic setting of the historic district. Cleveland Park is named after President Grover Cleveland whose country house, Oak View, stood in the heart of the burgeoning suburb before falling victim to demolition in 1927. The Cleveland Park Historic District lies between Wisconsin Avenue on the west, Connecticut Avenue on the east, Klingle Valley on the south, and Tilden Street on the north. Served by a metro stop, the neighborhood contains a cohesive collec- tion of single-family resi- Platted in 1890,”Oak View” was a dences, apartment buildings, several-block subdivision around Grover a vibrant commercial corridor Cleveland’s country house of the same name. Oak View was bounded on the with stores and restaurants, south by Woodley Road, on the north by schools, a library, fire View of north side of Ashley Terrace, Newark Street, on the west by Wisconsin circa 1904. The first homes on this Avenue, and on the east between 34th station and other amenities. tranquil dead-end street above and 35th Streets, and was one of Connecticut Avenue enjoyed several platted subdivisions that would uninterrupted views east to eventually become today’s Cleveland Park. Rock Creek and beyond. Collection of Kathleen Sinclair Wood. 1 1 Cleve Park Hist. Dist.-REVISE 12/14/05 10:28 AM Page C4 W A S H I N G T O N D C C L E V E L A N D P A R K H I S T O R I C D I S T R I C T Cleve Park Hist. Dist.-REVISE 12/14/05 10:28 AM Page 2 H I S T O R Y O F T H E S U B D I V I S I O N The historic district, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has local and national significance as an early “streetcar suburb” of Washington. The district features a picturesque street plan resulting from the planning work of the landscape architecture firm of Frederick Law Olmsted, View of Connecticut looking west across the road between today’s Newark and an impressive array of architecture with individually and Ordway Streets, including the present site of the Uptown Theater. designed buildings offering a variety of styles in vogue This circa 1904 view shows several of the early houses of Cleveland Park. A stone quarry on the site provided stone for the foundations of the first between 1890 and 1930. In addition, Cleveland Park retains houses in the suburb. Collection of Robert Truax. some estates that preceded the area’s suburban growth and survive as integral components of the neighborhood today. 1890, the area north of Rock Creek re ma i ned re m ote and Cleveland Park as we know it consists of a set of i n accessible due to the steep ra v i n es of Rock Creek and the independent subdivisions, platted in a series of phases, K l i ngle Valley and was thus not pra c t ical for de v e l o p me nt. beginning in the early 1890s, and laid out in an effort to By 1890, ho w e v e r, in his effort to pro v ide tra ns p o r t a t ion to capitalize on the existence of the new electric streetcar lines his “mo del” suburb in Chevy Chase, developer and later on present-day Wisconsin and Connecticut Avenues. Prior to S e nator from Ne v a d a, Fra ncis Griffith Ne w l a n ds establishe d the growth of these streetcar lines, the area around and t h e Rock Creek Railway Company and began laying the tra c k s including Cleveland Park was unplatted, rural territory not for a streetcar line on land he had purchased as part of his easily accessible to the city, but home to a scattering of g ra nd de v e l o p me nt sche m e. Ne w l a n ds’ company, the Che v y 18th and 19th century estates, including that of the Chase Land Company, cons t r ucted the five-mile stretch of eponymous Grover Cleveland. However, as the population C o n ne c t icut Av e nue from Calvert Street north to Chevy Chase of Washington continued to increase following the Civil War, L a ke in Mo nt go mery Count y, Ma r y l a n d, the reby opening up the and residential development began pushing itself beyond e nt i r e length of Conne c t icut Av e nue for future de v e l o p me nt. the city limits at Boundary Street (Florida Avenue), the former farmland of Washington County became attractive The construction of Connecticut Avenue beginning at to speculative real estate developers. today’s Calvert Street, not only included cutting the thor- oughfare over heavily wooded and stream-cut terrain, laying The earliest of these subdivisions, labeled Oak View the tracks, and building the roadbed, but also involved the (platted 1890), and Cleveland Heights (platted circa 1890), daunting task of erecting the bridges across Rock Creek at west of today’s Reno Road were laid out in response to the Calvert Street and across the Klingle Valley. A huge extension of the Georgetown and Tenallytown (Tenleytown) engineering feat, these two bridges were substantial iron streetcar line along Wisconsin Avenue. This line, chartered structures erected at great expense and to great acclaim. in 1888 from Georgetown to Tenleytown, was extended in By September 1892, construction of Connecticut Avenue and 1890 north to Bethesda across the Maryland line, and later its bridges was complete. Streetcar service opened between to Rockville. While this line ultimately served as a major Calvert Street and Chevy Chase Lake with scheduled stops at catalyst for suburban development along its Maryland route, the National Zoo. Within two years, a new stop at Cleveland these first two Cleveland Park subdivisions did not initially Park would be added along the Connecticut Avenue corridor progress beyond the paper stage. and to the Rock Creek Railway streetcar’s route. T he ultimate success of today’s Cleveland Park was due not Background image: After significantly altering the mid-19th-century to its proximity to the George t o w n - Tenleytown streetcar along stone house known as Forrest Hill, Grover Cleveland and his wife, Frances W i s c o nsin Av e nu e, but to the opening up of the Rock Cre e k renamed the property Oak View for the property’s surrounding view. Railway line along Conne c t icut Av e nue in 1892. Prior to Despite this designation, the property was popularly dubbed “Red Top” for its encompassing and steeply pitched hipped roof, which along with the turrets and towers, was painted red. From Oak View Grover Cleveland commuted each day to the White House. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. 2 3 2 3 Cleve Park Hist. Dist.-REVISE 12/14/05 10:28 AM Page 4 ing in depth from 80 to 210 feet. The sub- division was enhanced by a 10-acre “reserva- tion” surrounding the 18th-century estate of Rosedale. The grid plan was established in accordance with the 1888 “Act to Regulate the Subdivision of Land Within the District of Columbia,” which required that new subdi- visions beyond the city limits conform to the “General Plan of the City of Washington.” Despite its conventional grid plan, John The Connecticut Avenue Bridge over Klingle Valley is perceived as the Sherman had a vision for Cleveland Park that went beyond southern gateway to Cleveland Park. The first bridge on the site was a the more typical pattern of speculative development. steel trestle bridge, built by the Chevy Chase Land Company in 1891. The existing bridge, erected in 1931 on the 1891 abutments, was Clearly inspired by the new suburb of Chevy Chase, and designed in the Art Deco style by nationally noted architect Paul Cret. modeling its own subdivision after it, the Cleveland Park Photo by Kathleen Sinclair Wood, 1988.

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