Washington Winter Show 2010

40 Adams sent to Georgetown for produce and the best viands. Although the area’s popularity plummeted in the early part of the twentieth century, the arrival of the New Deal brought it emphatically back. A close-in location, country houses in the city, inviting porches and terraces—what’s not to like about that? Residents appreciated their mix of quiet classiness and modern striving, a bit of down home and a touch of swank (Figure 5). Renowned architect HughNewell Jacobsen—who happens to live in Georgetown—observed that while the Federal Period lasted roughly from 1810 to 1840, it was a style that hung on. He says there are maybe five true Colonial houses and eight Federal houses in Georgetown; the rest are nineteenth and twentieth century. It all works because of the domestic scale and the transfer of lines from one house to another. Some of the great showplaces are Tudor Place, of course, and Dumbarton Oaks with its landscaper’s dream gardens created by the fabled garden designer Beatrix Farrand (Figure 6). Then there are others, some to be found in the 2700 and 2800 blocks of N Street. The famous row houses: Cooke’s Row on Que street, Smith Row and Cox Row on the west side of N Street (Figure 7). Beautiful Evermay, with its Italianate gardens and commanding view of the city, never fails to astonish. It’s hard to believe that there could be such a place of such size in the city. At the Bodisco House, 3322 O Street, a Russian nobleman fell in love with a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, to the horror of her parents, but they married and lived happily ever after. One pictures him in his thigh-high boots and fur hat cutting a swath in Martin Van Buren’s Washington. Don’t miss the Carpenter’s Gothic house at 1694 31st Street, or Halcyon House, or Mackall Square, or the Laird-Dunlop House. At 1617 29th Street, Herman Hollerith, a pioneer in data processing who soon became a millionaire, built his house to look like a factory to fool the tax assessor. His wife made him change it and add the gracious details. Is it better to look back at the past or forward to the future? We live in the reflected glory of these great old houses. But it is the details, notice the details (Figure 8). It’s like Rome, you look up and there is something totally beguiling. Notice the doorknobs, the fanlights, the sidelights, some with filigree, Figure 5: Evermay, front entrance. Samuel Davidson erected this house between 1801 and 1810. The Belin family purchased the property in 1923, restored the house, and created its fine formal gardens. Courtesy Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, HABS (reproduction number HABS DC, GEO, 49-3). Figure 6: Tudor Place interior vestibule. This family home of Martha Washington’s granddaughter is a particularly fine example of Regency architecture. Photograph by Cervin Robertson as commissioned by Armistead Peter III, courtesy Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, HABS (reproduction number HABS DC, GEO, 2-13).