The high and varied landscape, where the main residential section of Cleveland Park is located, was valued for its healthful atmosphere and panoramic views as early as 1793–1795, when Georgetown merchant and federal city proprietor Uriah Forrest began this country house on a large tract of land called Pretty Prospects. Now owned by Youth for Understanding International Exchange, Rosedale consists of an L-shaped series of connected structures, the oldest a single-story stone double house called the Cottage. The Cottage may be the oldest building in the city; tradition dates it to 1740, but no scientific studies have been undertaken. Forrest's original house resembles Mount Vernon before George Washington made additions to it, a frame five-bay house sheathed in clapboards, with brick end chimneys and a simple single-story porch, supported by spindly columns, that traverses its entire south facade.
A similar two-story gabled addition of three bays was added to it at right angles and a lower single-bay saltbox connected the wood sections of the house to the stone ones. Rosedale is an eighteenth-century vernacular type still commonly found in the Virginia and