Georgetown's Old Stone House: Washington Didn't Sleep Here

There’s a charming little National Park Service site at 3051 M Street in Georgetown, known as the Old Stone House. It may be the oldest surviving structure in the District of Columbia, dating to 1765, when a certain Christopher Layman built it as a carpenter’s shop and living quarters. Solidly built in the “Pennsylvanian” vernacular style, the little building looks hopelessly out of place on bustling modern-day M Street. Why, then, has it been preserved when all else seemingly was lost, and why has it been taken over by the Park Service? What momentous historical personage or event is connected with it? The answer: nothing. Not a blessed thing of any historical significance ever, as far as we know, happened in this house. It’s just a really old and cool little house. And that’s the only reason it’s a national historic site.

If you’re as cynical as I am, you’re already feeling like you’re missing some important part of this story, and then you look at this postcard of the house from around 1910, and you see the clearly-stated caption: “Gen. Geo. Washington’s Headquarters while Surveying the City of Washington, D.C. in 1791.” What? So he did sleep here?

An F Street Stroll, circa 1909

F Street NW, between 7th and 15th Streets, was Washington's bustling commercial hub in the early 1900s. Large companies, like Woodward & Lothrop, began the migration from flood-prone Pennsylvania Avenue to F Street in the late 1880s. By the 1900s, stores lined both sides of the street for many blocks. We started our survey of this F Street strip at its western end, 15th Street, with a view facing back east. We also took a look from 14th Street. Now we're walking all the way down to 9th Street and are turning completely around to face west. You can just make out the many-columned Treasury Building in the distance, where we started.

It's about 1909, and we're on the northeast corner of the intersection with a sea of activity in front of us. The streetcar just ahead will be obliged to swerve off to our left in a moment because the commanding, neoclassical Patent Office Building (unseen to our right), encroaches on what would have been the F Street right-of-way, forcing it a little to the south for one block. This gives us the opportunity to look down F Street as if we were standing in the middle of the street. On the right, a long row of shops and restaurants have huge awnings deployed, stretching all the way across the sidewalk, thus providing a sort of open-air arcade for pedestrians, shading them from the intensity of the hot Washington summer sun while they shop for shoes or dresses or cigars or whatever. In contrast, on the naturally-shady south side of the street, only one shopkeeper seems to have put up an awning.

Terracotta Triumph: The Westory Building

The view here is of the intersection of 14th and F Streets, N.W., facing east, around 1910-1915. The dark building glimpsed on the near right (southwest) corner is the Willard Hotel. Behind it, on the southeast corner, is the Ebbitt House, discussed in a previous post. On the left side, the prominent building on the northeast corner is the recently completed Westory Building, today's subject...

The first decade of the 20th century saw a tremendous explosion of commercial real estate development in downtown Washington, and much of it was concentrated in the newly christened "financial" district along 14th and 15th Streets NW near the Treasury Building. Each new building, naturally, strove for attention through one form of superlative design or another. The Westory, completed in 1907, is an interesting case in point.

Before the Westory, the mansion of Dr. Robert King Stone stood on this site, as seen in the photograph above from the May 27, 1906, edition of the Washington Times. Stone's mansion was typical of the many stately brick residences that lined the streets of this neighborhood through most of the 19th century until larger commercial buildings gradually began to encroach in the 1870s. The Greek Revival house with its distinctive oval windows in the attic was built circa 1849 for Dr. Stone as a wedding gift from his wealthy father. Stone became perhaps the most prominent physician in Washington by the time he died in 1872. He had been President Lincoln's personal physician, and was summoned from his home here on the night of April 14, 1865, to attend to the mortally-wounded president at nearby Ford's Theater. After Dr. Stone's death, his widow remained in the house, refusing all offers to buy it and ignoring the rapid commercial changes that were engulfing the neighborhood around her. After her death in 1905, the property was finally sold, for an astonishing $76 per square foot, to developer George Higbee, who then immediately tore down the house and built the Westory in its place. In addition to the $190,000 he spent on the lot, Higbee probably put about $200,000 into constructing and decorating the new office building--a substantial investment at the time.

Pennsylvania Avenue from the Treasury Through The Years

For over a hundred years it has been popular to take photos of Pennsylvania Avenue from the steps of the south portico of the Treasury Building. It is a magnificent view down America's "Main Street" with the Capitol sitting proudly at the far end. A survey of stereoviews and postcards (click on the images to see larger versions) shows the vast number of views that have been produced as well as the architectural changes that have occurred over the years.

We start before the birth of postcards, in the 1870s, with this stereo-graph card, showing the Avenue before any tall buildings had been built. On the right is a fine row of Federal-style townhouses, such as had lined both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue in the early part of the 19th century. This row would be demolished in the late 1880s and so doesn't appear in any of the postcards. The house nearest us on the corner was Mrs. Suter's Tavern in 1814, where the British made their temporary headquarters while burning the White House, as discussed in a previous post. On the left are more federal townhouses; the one toward the middle of the block will last longer than the one nearest us. Past those buildings are the faint outlines of the original Willard Hotel, built in 1818 and enlarged in the 1850s. This is the hotel where Lincoln stayed when he arrived in Washington for his inauguration. It would be torn down in 1900 to make way for the much larger, grander hotel that still stands there today. The old Willard is still visible on the left side of the next stereoview, circa 1880, which also shows an early horse-drawn trolley car turning from 15th Street on to the avenue.

Old and Older: The Ebbitt House and New Ebbitt Hotel

William E. Ebbitt established his boardinghouse in 1856 on the southeast corner of 14th and F Streets NW, in a neighborhood of many old residences that had become boardinghouses. Like many hotels from the early part of the 19th century—including the National and Brown’s—Ebbitt House was created by combining several existing Federal-style townhouses. Ebbitt ran it for only eight years, selling it to Caleb C. Willard in 1864. Willard was one of four brothers who operated the Willard Hotel, located only a block south of the Ebbitt.

This view of the original Ebbitt House is from the cover of a menu, dated March 3, 1866, in the Library of Congress. The dinner menu on that day included such delicacies as Leg of Mutton with Caper Sauce; Boiled Capons with Pork Sauce; and Wild Red Head Duck Broiled, with Currant Jelly Sauce.

In 1872, Willard incorporated the old structure's several parts into a much larger “New” Ebbitt, a distinguished, stylish, Second-Empire building six stories tall. As noted by James Goode in Capital Losses, the hotel "was originally designed with a restrained mansard roof skillfully designed in scale with the body of the building."

The Ebbitt House in 1876, with its first mansard roof.

Then, in about 1895, the building was enlarged and an "overpowering" new roof was installed, as seen in the postcard view below. The top attic level with all the circular windows provided quarters for servants. The lobby featured massive chandeliers, a marble floor, marble-topped walnut reception desk, and a 25-foot coved ceiling, supported by four Corinthian columns. Thus the Ebbitt achieved a pinnacle of sorts, in Victorian excess, but it was spacious, up-to-date, and a very popular hotel.

The Ebbitt was especially popular with military officials. At one point (possibly in the 1870s), Congress adjourned for its summer recess without providing any pay for military officers. The officers had to manage on their own through the summer until Congress re-convened and passed a pay bill. Caleb Willard recognized an opportunity here and offered to put up Army or Navy officers at his hotel, with the proviso that their bills be settled at whatever time they eventually received their pay. As a result, the hotel became known as the "Army and Navy Headquarters," as noted on the postcard. Prominent guests included General William T. Sherman, Admiral David G. Farragut, Admiral David Dixon Porter, and General Winfield Scott Hancock. William McKinley also stayed at the Ebbitt throughout his congressional career and left from it for his presidential inauguration.