Perry Belmont: Not Everyone's First Choice for a New Neighbor

View of Belmont mansion looking up New Hampshire Avenue.  DC Public Library.

When Thomas Nelson Page built his home at 1759 R Street, NW in 1896, he would not have imagined that his arch enemy, who embodied everything he despised about New York's high society, would end up building his house directly across the street from him ten years later.

In 1906, wealthy New York lawyer Perry Belmont purchased the triangular lot between New Hampshire Avenue and Eighteenth and R Streets Northwest at 1618 New Hampshire Avenue with the intention to build a house for entertaining during the winter social season. At the time of its purchase, it was one of the few remaining pieces of unimproved property left in the Dupont Circle area. 

Belmont was born on December 28, 1851, in New York City, the son of Caroline Slidell (née Perry) and August Belmont, founder and namesake of the Belmont Stakes.  His maternal grandfather was Commodore Matthew C. Perry.  Belmont attended the Everest Military Academy in Hamden, Connecticut, graduated from Harvard College in 1872, and Columbia Law School in 1876.

After practicing law in New York City for five years after his graduation from Columbia, Belmont came to Washington in 1881 as a congressman from New York and served four terms. In 1898, President William McKinley appointed Belmont the United States minister to Spain. While in Europe, he was introduced to the designs of École des Beaux-Arts–trained architect Ernest-Paul Sanson, whom he hired to design his Washington residence.

Perry Belmont. Library of Congress

Perry Belmont had successfully established himself in politics and diplomacy and had been a member of Washington’s official society. But his solid social standing was to change when he married a divorced woman.  In 1899, after seventeen years of marriage, Jessie Ann Robbins divorced her husband, Henry Sloane, the son of the founder of New York department store W.&J. Sloane, to marry Perry Belmont. The marriage occurred only five hours after the divorce was decreed. Under the terms of the divorce, Jessie was forced to give up her New York City mansion, along with all its contents, which Henry Sloane had only given her only the year before, as well as all other property she had received from Sloane.  Sloane was granted custody of their two children, and Jessie forfeited all rights to see them until they turned twenty-one years of age. She was also prohibited from marrying again in the state of New York during the lifetime of Henry Sloane, although he retained the right to marry whomever and wherever he pleased.

With Jessie's divorce, it became impossible for the Belmont's to remain in New York.  Perry Belmont had made plans for a Fifth Avenue mansion for them there to be designed by architect Horace Trumbauer, but those plans were abandoned.  They sought refuge in Paris for the next two years, waiting for the storm to blow over.

When the Belmonts returned to Washington in 1906, they rented a house in the Scott Circle neighborhood where they began to entertain lavishly.  Yet, the Belmonts found themselves socially ostracized by society in Washington as well as New York.  In order to reestablish themselves in society, the Belmonts hosted one of the most expensive entertainments known to Washington society at the time. In January of that year, the Washington Post announced that the Belmonts would host a musicale featuring the Italian tenor Enrique Caruso, soprano Bessie Abbot, and cellist Jean Gerardy.  To add an extra air of privilege and exclusivity to the event, the Belmonts claimed that their music room was small and intimate so the number of invitations would have to be limited. Talk began at once about who would receive one of the coveted invitations. The invitations were sent out—to three hundred invitees of the official and limited residential society members in Washington, mostly senators and congressmen and government and military officials. Noticeably absent from the guest list were members of Dupont Circle’s smart set society— the neighborhood to where they would soon move. 

Perry and Jessie Belmont.  Library of Congress

In 1907, Perry Belmont’s name was proposed for membership in the exclusive Chevy Chase Club by his friend Senator Stephen Elkins. Whenever a name was submitted for membership, the board of governors of the club would vote on it. It only took two no votes, or “blackballs,” to be denied membership. Dupont Circle resident William Boardman, who was also a neighbor of Perry Belmont in New York City, was one of the two of the club’s governors that blackballed Belmont’s application.

There were various theories as to why two of the governors would vote against such a prominent member of society. One theory was that Thomas Nelson Page might have had an influence on one of the voting governors. The Pages had a known dislike of New York society in general and the Belmonts in particular. 

Another theory for Belmont’s rejection from the Chevy Chase Club was that Mrs. Belmont’s former husband, Henry Sloane, had a hand in the decision.  But, Belmont placed the blame on Mrs. Roosevelt’s private secretary and on the president’s friendship with Thomas Nelson Page. Belmont had been an outspoken opponent of Roosevelt, and the Roosevelts had never been particularly friendly with the Belmonts. When Belmont’s suspicion became public, they were no longer welcome at the White House. 

Social setbacks did not deter Belmont’s plans to build his winter home in Washington.  French architect Ernest-Paul Sanson's original plans were turned over to Horace Trumbauer, who was to design the Belmont's Fifth Avenue mansion, for modifications and supervision of the construction.  

Architect Horace Turmbauer

Horace Turmbauer was a prominent American architect of the Gilded Age, known for designing residential manors for the wealthy in Philadelphia, New York, and Newport, RI, as well as office buildings, hospitals, and Harvard University's principal library, the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library.   His career was launched with the 110-room Georgian-revival palace, Lynnewood Hall (1897–1900), which is considered the largest surviving Gilded Age mansion in the Philadelphia area.  In his later career, Turmbauer is probably most remembered for the design of much of the Duke University campus.  The Belmont house was his only project in Washington, DC.

In 1907,  construction began on a grand Louis XVI–style Beaux Arts Indiana limestone mansion on the lot he had purchased the year before.   The house sat directly across from Belmont’s arch enemy Thomas Nelson Page’s house, overshadowing his more traditional Georgian-style home. Although it may not have been intentional on Belmont's part, the rear of his house faces Nelson’s house so that Nelson’s view out his front windows was of Belmont’s servant and delivery entrance. 

When completed, Perry Belmont’s mansion became known as the “upside-down” house, as the kitchen was on the top floor of house and in the typical French arrangements, with the bedrooms on the first floor and the grand state rooms above.  Ironically for its size, the house has only one guest room, although it does have a sitting room attached to it.   One of the largest crystal chandeliers in Washington was hung in the ballroom. 

Main staircase landing with view to the foyer below.

 

The mansion became a social center of Washington during the few months of the year when it was actually occupied by the Belmonts. The Cave Dwellers dubbed the house the “Opening Wedge,” not because it was wedge-shaped, but they viewed it as a way for the Belmonts to insert themselves back into society.  The house served as the residence for the Prince of Wales and his staff during his visit to Washington in 1919, when he much preferred to stay at the Belmont house over the old British Embassy building on Connecticut Avenue. The Belmonts preferred the family cottage Belcourt in Newport, Rhode Island, and Paris over Washington and ultimately did not spend many seasons in the New Hampshire Avenue house.

 

Belcourt (1895).  Library of Congress.

By the beginning of the Great Depression, Perry and Jessie Belmont were dividing their time between Paris and Newport and only occasionally returned to Washington.  In 1933, the eighty-one-year-old Perry Belmont petitioned the District Zoning Commission to allow him to transform his mansion at 1618 New Hampshire Avenue into six deluxe apartments for a restricted clientele without altering the building’s distinctive architectural design. He said that he would “rather see it rented to desirable tenants than see it stand there, a monument to the depression” and claimed that the project would provide temporary work for a few unemployed men. Nothing came of his proposal.

The Belmonts’ grand house stood vacant until 1935 when it was purchased by the General Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star for $100,000. Belmont was an honored guest at the dedication of the building in 1937. That same year, Jessie Belmont died of a heart attack in Paris, where they were spending the year. With his wife’s death, Perry Belmont returned from Paris to live in Newport where he died in 1947 at the age of ninety-six. 

Perry Belmont Mansion today.   Photo by the author.