Kalorama: From Joel Barlow's Scenic Seat to Suburban Subdivision
The Kalorama mansion as it appeared circa 1825. Rendering by the author. |
The Kalorama mansion in Washington, DC once stood on the south side of the 2300 block of S Street, NW on the site of Jeff Bezos's two houses. The original part of Kalorama dated from about 1750 and was built by Scottish immigrant and early Washington proprietor Anthony Holmead. It was a long, two-and-a-half story house made from brick imported from England.
In
1795, Holmead built a new house for himself that he named "Rock Hill" on top a craggy plateau just a stone's throw away from his first house that he sold to
City Commissioner Gustavus Scott. Scott added gardens and landscaping to the Holmead house and named it "Belair."
Anthony Holmead's Rock Hill. It was located in the center of what is now Mitchell Park in the Sheridan-Kalorama neighborhood (see the map of the estate below). Library of Congress. |
With his purchase and upgrades to Belair, Gustavus Scott found himself in financial difficulties and sold off two parcels of the estate on the edge of Rock Creek to Edgar Patterson and Evan Lyons. Patterson built a paper mill and Lyons, a grist mill. Learning that Scott was near bankruptcy, Thomas Jefferson wrote to poet, statesman, and close friend, Joel Barlow, trying to interest him in purchasing Belair: "There is a most lovely seat joining the City on a high hill commanding the Potomac River, with superb house and gardens," but at the time Barlow seemed not to be interested.
Upon Scott's death in 1800, his widow sold Belair to William Augustine Washington (President Washington's nephew) for $16,000. Washington added a dining and drawing room onto the rear (north side) of the house. In 1807, Washington sold the estate at a loss to Joel Barlow. Washington then moved to Charleston, S.C. where he died a short time later.
Joel Barlow. Charles Willson Peale. U.S. Department of State. |
Barlow changed the name of the estate from Belair to Kalorama, Greek for “fine view,” as he felt the name Belair had been already given to many places in Maryland and Virginia. When Barlow acquired Kalorama, it consisted of 30 acres. He then bought an additional acre to allow access to the estate from Boundary Street (now Florida Avenue and R Streets) and twenty acres to the north for a barn and orchard.
Around 1810, Barlow engaged the services of architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe and added
the large east wing to house, a gatehouse in the style of a Greek temple at Boundary Street, a family mausoleum at
Massachusetts and 22nd Streets, and stables at Massachusetts and
Decatur Place. Kalorama was covered entirely in a mustard yellow-colored stucco to give the various additions an overall uniform appearance.
The
large east wing was added by Joel Barlow that was possibly designed by Benjamin Latrobe. Rendering by the author. |
Map of Barlow's Kalorama Estate. Matthew B. Gilmore |
Kalorama estate gate and gatehouse. Author's collection. |
B/W photograph of a watercolor of Kalorama by E. Esterbrook. Author's collection. |
Kalorama. Photo of an oil painting by Baron Alexander Bodisco, the Russian envoy to the U.S. from 1837-1854. Author's collection. |
Kalorama after the 1865 Christmas Eve fire. Library of Congress. |
After the Civil War, Louisa Fletcher, by now a widow, returned to Kalorama and died there in 1868. Kalorama stood empty until 1875 when her other son George Sidney Lovett decided to return to the family mansion with his second wife Emeline Dore Boggs Lovett and their two daughters, Charlotte and Anna. In need of funds to restore the mansion to its former
glory, he sold a forty acre parcel of the western part of the
estate to the Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company for $15,000. This was the first of a series of events that would ultimately lead to the complete break up of the estate.
George Sidney Lovett. Author's collection. |
Emeline Lovett continued to occupy Kalorama while the extension of the city above Florida Avenue and westward with Massachusetts Avenue began to encroach upon what remained of the estate. In 1886, District Commissioners began proceedings to extend
Massachusetts Avenue through the southern part of the estate, passing directly through the old Barlow cemetery. The only objections to the proposed extension were Commander Brown of the Naval Observatory and Evan Lyons, a descendant of the Evan Lyons who had purchased the land from Augustus Scott for a grist mill. Brown removed his objection when he learned the extension would not cross Rock Creek.
Map Indicating the proposed extension of Massachusetts Avenue through the Kalorama esate ("T.R. Lovett" outlined in red). The Washington Post. Oct 20, 1886. |
With development happening all around, four of the five Lovett heirs to Kalorama—George's brother Thomas, and three sisters—smelled a financial windfall and wanted to sell it, but the fifth heir, George's widow Emeline who held the land in trust for her two daughters, refused to sell. As a result, in 1886 the four Lovett siblings petitioned to divide the property into fifths. Emeline got the southern portion of the estate, from S Street NW south to Q Street NW that included the mansion. The siblings quickly sold their portions the next year to a Philadelphia syndicate that paid $5,900 an acre for sixty acres of the estate. The Evening Star reported that "this transaction was the highest ever made in this area for land beyond the Boundary. The contrast is striking between the unimproved Kalorama property enclosed by its rough stone wall, and the handsome houses along the end of Massachusetts Avenue near Rock Creek."
The Washington Post. Nov 14,1886 |
Emeline Lovett would continue to try to hold onto her portion of the estate, along with the old Kalorama mansion, but this would not last for long. In 1887, the Kalorama mansion was condemned and razed for the extension and grading of S Street that would have run directly through the house.
The next year, Emeline's share of Kalorama was subdivided as Kalorama Heights. With her house gone, she needed a new home and she finally subdivided the remaining land that was not condemned by the city. Emeline and her daughter Charlotte moved to 2203 Massachusetts Avenue, a single row house that was built as her residence in 1890 on her subdivision on her part of the Kalorama estate directly across from the Barlow mausoleum. Emeline's other daughter, Anna (now Mrs. Beaman), would move just across the street to 2208 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Emeline and Charlotte Lovett home at 2203 Massachusetts Avenue, NW. (left) and the home of a daughter Anna at 2208 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., now the Embassy of Tongo (right). Author's photos. |
Emeline Lovett was not the only hold out in the neighborhood at that time. Immediately to the east remained Anthony Holmead's Rock Hill home that he built and moved to in 1795. It remained in his descendants hands, and in the 1880s it was occupied by Sophia Speake Kall, a great-granddaughter of Anthony Holmead, The original 56 acre that Holmead kept for himself when he divided up his Kalorama estate were still in tact, running from what is now Wyoming Avenue on the north to Florida Avenue to the south. While developers were subdividing the land around around the house and the city was laying sewers and water, it had to stop when it reached the Holmead property line. Finally, in 1887 Sophia Kall directed a lawyer to divide the northern part of her land, but the rest of Holmead property remained in tact until 1894 when Kall died at the age of 62.
Barlow's lodge and gatehouse was removed in 1890 for the extension of R Street NW and the construction of the building at 2119 R Street. It had been assumed that the one acre plot of land where the Barlow mausoleum stood was part of the Lovett's Kalorama estate, but in fact it was only held in trust by the Lovetts for the Bomford family. With the condemnation of land along the route of Massachusetts Avenue, it ultimately became city property and in February 1892 District engineers removed fourteen bodies from the mausoleum to Rock Creek Cemetery for burial in a lot which
George Bomford had purchased years before. Among them were the bodies of Ruth Barlow,
Abraham Baldwin (her brother and Senator from Georgia), Clara and George
Bomford, and several other Bomford descendants. With the demolition of the mausoleum, the last physical traces of the Barlows at Kalorama were gone.
On Oct 13, 1902, Emeline Lovett met with a fatal accident while visiting a sanitarium in Cobourge, Canada with her daughter Charlotte, who was then in delicate health. After leaving her room to take a bath, she mistakenly opened a door that led to a stairway to the floor below. Not looking, she stepped through the door and fell to her death. Her remains were returned to Washington and she was buried in Rock Creek Cemetery along side her husband. Two years later, Charlotte sold the house on Massachusetts Avenue for $25,000.
George and Emeline Lovett's grave stone in Rock Creek Cemetery. |
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Sources (Selected):
Michael W. Fazio and Patrick A.
Snadon. The Domestic Architecture of William Henry Latrobe. The Johns
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2006.
Corra Bacon-Foster. The Story of Kalorama.
Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C. , Vol. 13,
(1910), pp. 98-118. Historical Society of Washington, D.C.
Matthew B. Gilmore and Michael R. Harrison. "A Catalogue of Suburban Subdivisions of the District of Columbia, 1854-1902." Washington History, Vol. 14, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2002.
Stephen A. Hansen. Kalorama Triangle: The History of a Capital Neighborhood. Charleston: History Press. 2011.
Michael R. Harrison. Above the Boundary: The Development of Kalorama and Washington Heights, 1872-1900. Washington History , Vol. 14, No. 2. Published by the Historical Society of Washington, DC. , pp. 56-69.
Christian Hines. Early Recollections of Washington. Junior League of Washington, Washington, DC. 1981.
Mary Mitchell. Kalorama: Country Estate to Washington Mayfair. Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C. Vol. 71/72, The 48th separately bound book (1971/1972), pp. 164-189
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Copyright © 2012 Stephen A. Hansen. All Rights Reserved.
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