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Madison Place

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between H St. and Pennsylvania Ave. on the east side of Lafayette Square

Madison Place derives its name, designated in 1859, from the corner house at its northern end ( WH12.1). Built in 1818 for Dolley Madison's brother-in-law, Richard Cutt, from whom the Madisons obtained it in 1828, the house today has little intrinsic architectural merit, having been remodeled numerous times, most recently in 1968 by John Carl Warnecke and Associates. Its three remaining neighbors have also been extensively renovated and serve as offices for Warnecke's Court of Claims complex (see WH06). The William Windom House ( WH12.2), adjacent to the Madison House, was built in 1874 by Henry Reed Rathbone; its neighbor, the Robert G. Ingersoll House ( WH12.3), four years later. The imposing three-bay brick house erected by Benjamin Ogle Tayloe in 1828 was a freestanding house next to an alley. Its projecting portico and cast-iron balcony may be original. Unfortunately, no definitive histories exist for these buildings, and they have been altered so often that it is difficult to judge them individually. Their remaining architectural value is that they maintain the domestic scale and period detail that Lafayette Square was designed to accommodate.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Pamela Scott and Antoinette J. Lee
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Data

What's Nearby

Treasury Annex
New Executive Office Building and Court of Claims Building
15th Street Historic District
Saint John's Church
Saint John's Church Parish House

Citation

Pamela Scott and Antoinette J. Lee, "Madison Place", [Washington, District of Columbia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/DC-01-WH12.

Print Source

Buildings of the District of Columbia, Pamela Scott and Antoinette J. Lee. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 163-164.

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