Cliffbourne: From Country Estate to Civil War Army Hospital

Cliffbourne was an early 19-century estate that once stood on the west side of present day Cliffbourne Place NW, a one-block stretch between Calvert and Biltmore Streets.  Cliffbourne, literally meaning "bordering a cliff," was an appropriate name for this estate.  Immediately to the north of John Little's house in the Kalorama Triangle neighborhood, it stretched from Columbia Road westward ending at a steep bluff where it met the Rock Creek valley at 20th Street, NW.   Cliffourne was the first house built in Kalorama Triangle and over time would also also give its name to a Civil War hospital, an 1898 subdivision, an apartment building, as well as to the street itself.  

Cliffbourne was first documented in 1815 when Dr. William Thornton acquired land for a horse farm in Kalorama Triangle from John Holmead and Thomas Peter that would later be acquired by John Little.  The deeds from both Holmead and Peter referenced an existing adjacent property owned by John Holmead and Thomas Pairo o…