The 1917 scandals and affairs of DC's builder Chester A. Snow

Patent Attorney and Investment Builder Chester A. Snow

A successful patent attorney, Chester Ammen Snow also invested in building several apartment buildings in Washington, including the Holmes and the Irving at 3014 and 3020 Dent Place in Georgetown, built in 1902 and 1903, respectfully. He was a partner in the CA Snow & Co. firm along with Edward G. Siggers, and they maintained an office at 708 8th Street, N.W., adjacent to the Snow household. By 1910, the City Directory indicated that his partner had changed to an individual by the name of Clarence A. Doyle. Their advertisement from that year appears above.

Chester A. Snow was born in April 1844 in Virginia to Reverend Dexter and Catherine Snow. The family moved to Washington, DC by 1880, and lived together in a large house at 712 8th Street, N.W., by 1900. The extended family was enumerated there that year, and included the elder Snow, and Chester and his wife Clarissa (Parfet) Snow. She was also a native of Virginia, having been born there in 1870.

Chester was age 50 and Clarissa age 24 when they had married in 1894. They had one child together, Chester, Jr., in 1898, that would go on to head the C. A. Snow Company, which was already flourishing by the time he had been born. An announcement in the July 29, 1907 Washington Post indicated that the wealthy couple were going to depart for a round-the-world trip in September of that year, to include India, Japan, and Egypt. Clarissa died sometime between 1907 and 1910, possibly on the trip itself.

According to the census taken in 1910, Chester, then age 66, had moved into a house at 1818 Newton Street, NW, along with his niece Maud Emory, then a widow age 42. They were taken care of by two servants and a cook. Snow was a longtime leader of the Washington Humane Society, and made the Washington Post several times as a complainant in cases against residents using horses that were “old and unfit to work,” or forced up snowy hills without sand being used for traction (Washington Post, January 20, 1905).

However, Snow began courting a 36 year old resident named Addis M. Hubard in early 1913, and the two were married on July 29^th of that year (Washington Post, July 25, 1914). They had a son named Dexter Hubard Snow on July 25, 1914, who had been born in Europe, where Addis had remained following their extended Honeymoon. 

Their marriage lasted just three years, however, as first reported in the January 23, 1917 issue of the Washington Post, that they had been separated since November of 1916. Their sensational divorce trial, which revealed an intimate relationship between Snow and his niece Maud, made headlines for weeks throughout the ordeal, and was no doubt the subject of much gossip in the city’s social circles. Testimony even included many love letters written between all three parties. Custody of Dexter was the focal point of the trial. It likely did not help matters that Chester Snow hit and injured an 18 year old child named Harvey Magner, playing near his office on 8th Street, NW, during the trial.

Addis claimed that their “love died on the honeymoon,” and that she was prevented from entertaining guests in their home, denied use of their automobile, and “never treated as a wife.” Snow countered, of course, and alleged that their “honeymoon was spoiled because of his bride’s nervousness and spells of hysteria.” In the end, Addis was granted custody of the child, and both received a divorce.

The trial also shed light on the financial success of Snow, who his second wife estimated as being worth $2 million. He also owned a farm property coined Fenwick, near Woodside, Maryland. 

Chester A. Snow, Jr., took over the C.A. Snow Company following an education at the University of Pennsylvania and The George Washington University, and it became exclusively involved in the real estate business. He had begun working there in 1916. Seen at left, he married Enid Sims on February 19, 1923.

Chester Snow died in 1937 at the age of 93. His son by his first wife, Chester A. Snow, Jr. died in August of 1977 in Washington, DC, and his son by his second wife, Dexter H. Snow, died in Amherst, Virginia in May of 1996.

Copyright Paul K. Williams

Lost Washington: The Stoneleigh Court Apartment at Connecticut & L Streets, NW

The large house owned by John N. Forbes on the southeast corner of Connecticut Avenue and L Street and several others were replaced by the Stoneleigh apartment building in 1903.  It was designed by James G. Hill, and built by Secretary of State John Hay (1838-1905), right, who has assembled the various parcels necessary.[1] 

 

The building was built at a cost of $600,000, and featured 90 apartments all furnished with elaborate wood paneling and the latest of conveniences.  It was the first apartment building to separate the usual bank of two adjoining elevators to decrease the time spent waiting for egress.  The building was set back from Connecticut Avenue, which it faced, with a central courtyard for vehicular access.  Hayes relatives sold the apartment building in 1926, when the courtyard was filled in for commercial storefronts.           

Harry Wardman became its owner in April of 1927, purchasing it for $1.6 million; just five months later, he sold it to out of town investors for $2.6 million.  Following the stock market crash of 1929, the building was sold at public auction in 1933 for just $800,000 to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. 

In 1962, the building sold for $4.5 million or $150 a square foot, which set a record for Washington real estate at the time.  It was razed in 1965 and replaced by the Blake Building, which has been refaced since its original construction.    

Copyright Paul K. Williams

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[1] Hayes, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division; Stoneleigh Court via Smithsonian Institution.

Dupont Circle's Nautical Buildings - Why there is a six foot anchor at Conn Ave & Q Street

The Anchorage at Conn Ave & Q Street, NW

While few pedestrians tend to look skyward during a brisk walk up Connecticut Avenue, those that do at the corner of Q Street are likely to spot a variety of architectural details with a nautical theme on what was originally two apartment buildings, the Anchorage at 1900 Q Street, and the Moorings at 1901 Q Street.  They are the surviving set of what had originally been four apartment buildings at the intersection, owned and managed by a wealthy socialite, Marie Hewitt Williams, the widow of Colonel John R. Williams.

Williams’ daughter, Juliette Leiter, resided in a vast mansion between New Hampshire and 19th Street, facing Dupont Circle, where the Hotel Dupont is located today, and just south of the Anchorage apartment building. She started her foray into providing apartments for single and distinguished residents in 1919 by converting two large mansions on Connecticut Avenue north of Q Street that would eventually become the Galleon and the Caravel. The five-story Galleon on the northeast corner of Connecticut and Q was built in 1899 as a residence and office for Dr. Henry D. Fry. The Caravel was built about the same time to the north.

Williams hired architect Jules H. de Sibour to design the whimsical Anchorage apartment building in 1924, with a six-foot anchor on the façade, nautical sconces and balcony railings, and working fireplaces in each of the 16 units. Three years later, she hired architect Horace Peaslee to design the eight unit Moorings across the street, with rope trim on the ground floor doorways and a lighthouse-shaped cupola atop the roof that remains to this day.

Q Street Facade of the Anchorage

Williams took out a fullpage ad in the 1925 Book of Washington, published by the Washington Board of Trade, that included a description of the building’s operation and a peek into its interior furnishings. It read:

 ‘The “Anchorage,” the “Moorings,” and the “Galleon,” –- three prominent, convenient, and modern apartment houses, whose nomenclature is reminiscent of the sea, but which provide safe, comfortable, and pleasant havens for the transient or permanent dweller, the seafarer or the landsman.

This triad of fine apartment dwellings, in keeping with the dignity and best living conditions of the national Capital, maintains the home atmosphere and efficiency of service so important to the tranquility of the permanent resident and visitor alike. Carrying out the allusion to maritime life found in the names of the three buildings, the walls of the apartments are adorned with pictures of clipper ships. Open fire places in the sitting rooms, where meals may be served from the private kitchen, add a suggestion of cheerfulness and warmth, enhanced by the draperies of quaint chintz.

The ANCHORAGE is divided into apartments of two rooms and bath or three rooms and two baths, charmingly furnished in maple. The MOORINGS is provided with the same unusual furnishings in apartments of two rooms, bath, and galley. A number of them have winding iron art stairways to the bedrooms above. The GALLEON is divided into similar apartments of two and three rooms, bath, and galley. On the first floor of the building, however, is located Rauscher’s famous restaurant, catering to the residents of the three buildings and the surrounding neighborhood. Long and short leases may be arranged in all three buildings. Rentals include complete care of rooms, linens, wood, and valet service.”

The Moorings at 19th and Q Streets

For many years, the Anchorage housed a French restaurant on the ground floor called Pierre’s that delivered meals to residents of all four buildings, including Williams herself. More than three dozen members of Congress called the Anchorage home while in Washington, the most famous of which would be Sam Rayburn of Texas, who lived there from 1936 to his death in 1961. Others included Robert F. Kennedy, Charles A. Lindbergh, and even Tallulah Bankhead.

In 1962, the Williams estate sold all four buildings to Clifford Hynning for $680,000. The Caravel and Galleon were both demolished in 1969 and replaced by a nondescript office building, and the Anchorage and Moorings were converted to office buildings, although much of the original nautical motifs remain

on the interior rooms.

Copyright Paul Kelsey Williams