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LeDroit Park, Washington DC

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LeDroit Park Washington DC

LeDroit Park, Washington DC

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History of LeDroit Park Washington DC

LeDroit Park DC

LeDroit Park was one of Washington's first suburbs, developed as a fenced, gated and guarded, exclusively white enclave by Amzi L. Barber, on 40 acres of land purchased from Howard University. Barber, whose second wife was Julia Louise Langdon, named the neighborhood after his father-in-law, real estate broker J. LeDroict Langdon.

Amzi Lorenzo Barber (1843-1909) graduated from Ohio's Oberlin College in 1867. Following a brief stint as Principal of the Preparatory division at Oberlin, and as a  professor at Howard University, Barber went into business with Senator John Sherman on a number of Washington DC real estate transactions. He later became known as "the asphalt king" after bringing the asphalt business to the United States via the Barber Asphalt Paving Company, and got in on the ground floor in the automaking business with his company "Locomobile." 

Sixty-four LeDroit Park DC houses were built, mostly between 1873 and 1877. They were designed by architect James H. McGill, who drew inspiration from Andrew Jackson Downing's Country Houses. Downing, a landscape designer and writer also known as "the father of American landscape architecture," authored a respected book in 1841 titled "A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America." This led him to a collaboration with celebrated architect Alexander Jackson Davis in 1842 on a pattern book called "Cottage Residences." The book was immensely popular among builders and carpenters of the day. More books followed, including The Architecture of Country Houses (1850), another influential pattern book, making Downing a celebrity in his own right.

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In 1850, Downing came across a European exhibit of Calvert Vaux's continental landscape watercolors. He encouraged Vaux to emigrate to the United States. Subsequently, Downing and Vaux worked together, designing many important projects including the White House grounds and the Smithsonian Institution.

Downing is also credited with the popularization of the front porch, which he saw as a link from the house to nature. He believed every American deserved a good home. He designed homes for the well-to-do, the working class and farmers alike. There is a memorium to Downing in the Enid A Haupt Garden at the Smithsonian.

In Amzi Barber's publications "LeDroit Park Illustrated," and "Architectural Advertiser," McGill's LeDroit houses are shown with varied facades and similar floor plans. In McGill's own Architectural Advertiser, he shows examples of LeDroit homes such as Design Sixteen, which is the Joseph Marvin house.

The 400 block of U Street in LeDroit Park DC is address to original McGill houses, the 500 block of T Street has several wonderful McGill examples, 317 T Street is McGill's Gothic style house and 325 T (next door) his Second Empire style house. A double house on the corner of Third and T Streets features a high mansard roof, finial, elaborate cornice and dormers.

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Susan Isaacs, Realtor

The Isaacs Team LLC

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1313 14th Street NW DC 20005

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