Architect John Fraser

British Legation, Connecticut Ave at N Street, NW. 

            Architect John Fraser was first listed in Washington’s City Directory in 1872, when he maintained an office at 515 7^th Street, N.W.  In 1874, he moved his operation to 1509 Pennsylvania Avenue, where he would remain through 1876.  He was first listed as an architect beginning with the 1877 Directory, when he designed the houses at 1433 to 1439 Q Street for developer George Truesdall.  He was listed at 1333 F Street in 1890, when he indicated that he had his son join the business that year. 

            Fraser was a native of Scotland and had first practiced architecture in Philadelphia before coming to Washington in 1871.  He first appeared in the Philadelphia City Directories in the 1850s, and had formed a partnership with civil engineer Andrew Palles coined ‘Fraser and Palles’ in that city in 1857. 

            Interestingly, Fraser attracted two architects into his office that would go on to enjoy major success in their own careers; Frank Furness (1839-1912) learned draftsmanship in the office, as did Louis H. Sullivan.  Eventually, Fraser and architect George W. Hewitt entered into a partnership with Fraser, coined ‘Fraser, Furness, and Hewitt.’  The firm lasted until 1871 when Fraser moved to Washington to serve as the Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury.      

Fraser designed several residences and store buildings while in Washington, including the row of houses at 914 to 926 French Street, N.W.  In addition to 1433-1439 Q Street in 1877, he designed the house at 1313 R Street in 1877, 1500 Rhode Island Avenue in 1879, and 1407 15^th Street in 1881.  In 1884, Fraser provided the plans for the first portion of the Kahn’s Department Store at Pennsylvania Avenue and 7^th Street (destroyed by fire in 1979).  Fraser was also the architect for the British Legation, built in 1872 at the corner of Connecticut Avenue and N Street, illustrated above.  It was torn down in 1931.  

Fraser’s plans for the house at 1500 Rhode Island Avenue were completed in 1879 for owners John T and Jessie Willis Brodhead, pictured at right about 1925.  It was purchased in 1882 by Gardiner Hubbard fro his daughter Mabel, who was married to Alexander Graham Bell.  In 1889, it was purchased by Levi P. Morton, who hired architect John Russell Pope in 1912 to turn the turreted Victorian into a classic revival house at a cost of $20,000.  It remains on the site at Scott Circle in its vastly altered form today. 

Fraser returned to Philadelphia in 1890 along with his son Archibald Alexander Fraser and practiced architecture until his son’s death in 1895, at which time Fraser retired to Riverton, New Jersey.  

Copyright Paul K. Williams

History of the odd Ffoulke Mansion at 2013 Massachusetts Avenue, NW: A Man and His Tapestries

One might be hard pressed to assign an author a combined article about Welsh ancestry, Quaker religion, antique tapestries, Royal weddings, early retirement, and even Pope Urban VIII, but they are all integral to one mansion that once stood at 2013 Massachusetts Avenue, NW.  It was built in 1886 on the site of what today is the Hilton Embassy Row hotel just west of Dupont Circle.

The house was speculatively built by developer Brainard H. Warner and designed by James G. Hill in 1886.  Built at a cost of $11,000, it was purchased shortly thereafter and vastly expanded by owner Charles Mather Ffoulke (1841-1919).  He had an addition added onto the eastern side that nearly doubled the house for one specific purpose: to display his growing collection of 17^th Century antique tapestries.

Ffoulke was born in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, on July 25, 1841, the son of Benjamin Green and Jane (Mather) Ffoulke.  For generations, both his maternal and paternal families had been known as “counselors of the peace” being land surveyors and conveyancers charges with the amicable settlement of disputes common with early land settlement and development in and around Bucks county, Pennsylvania among the fellow Quaker inhabitants.  His father gained credibility with the North Pennsylvania Railroad when he negotiated a new right of way for the extensive track system with hundreds of families that resulted in not one single lawsuit.  The Ffoulke family received their own land in Quakerstown by a grant from William Penn. 

Following a short teaching career in Quaker schools, Charles Ffoulke entered the wool business in Philadelphia in 1861.  It was wildly successful, and he retired just eleven years later, in 1872.  He set off on an extended two year vacation to Europe to study art and tapestries, and married Sarah A. Cushing in Paris on December 10, 1872.  He crisscrossed the Atlantic several more times between 1874 and 1884, before embarking on a five year tour beginning that year. He had five children who included: Horace Cushing, Helen Seagrave, Gladys, Gwendolyn, and Charles M. Jr.      

Ffoulke had nearly completed a long manuscript entitled “General History of Tapestries” when it was accidently destroyed and he began to work on the tome all over again.  He also compiled a book on the art tapestries of America, and a book entitled “A History of the Barberini Collection of Tapestries,” which apparently caught his fascination: he purchased the entire collection of 135 tapestries in its entirely in 1888.  The collection had begun in 1610 by Italian Cardinal Francesco Barberini (1597-1679), aided by his uncle, Pope Urban VIII, and had largely been assembled by 1690.  They were considered the most important, varied, and extensive collection of tapestries to be owned by a private citizen at the time.  Urban VIII was not only a Pope, but exercised temporal sovereignty over an extensive part of central Italy.                                    

Ffoulke had to store most of the collection in a rented Convent in Florence, however, because of the high excise tax imposed on antiques of such value when they entered the United States.  Only his most prized tapestries were brought to hang in the gallery at the Massachusetts Avenue house, or temporarily lent to museums around the globe.  That gallery also hosted weddings for his daughters, who each married visiting Diplomats and Royal descendants from all parts of Europe. 

Ffoulke died suddenly in New York City on April 14, 1909, but his widow continued to reside at 2013 Massachusetts Avenue until the late 1920s.  The tapestries were sold to various wealthy individuals, including Phoebe Hearst, and John R. McLean, among others, and today have mostly found their way into museums and churches such as the Cathedral of St. John the Devine in New York City.            

Like many large houses in Washington, the Ffoulke mansion was transformed into a boarding house during World War II for the onslaught of government workers.  Photographer Esther Bubley captured those at 2013 Massachusetts Avenue in January 1943 for an Office of War Information project and noted that it the “schedule for use of the boardinghouse bathroom is worked out so that each person has eight minutes in the morning.  It is social suicide to ignore the schedule and cause a tie-up like this.”  Shown in the picture are Enid Bubley, Roselyn Silverman, and Bluma Horowitz at Dissin's, a boarding house at 2013 Massachusetts Avenue, NW that catered to “young Jewish people.”  (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

Copyright Paul K. Williams

The Schneider Mansion at 18th and Q - Razed After 67 Years

Copyright Sharon Holdren

The large and impressive stone house seen here once stood proudly on the south-east corner of 18th and Q Streets. Many readers may recognize it as the Schneider mansion, home to prolific architect and developer Thomas Franklin Schneider (left) and his family. He built the house in 1891, only eight years after he began a private practice commonly designing and building entire blocks of lavish townhouses at once, such the 1700 block of Q Street adjacent the house.

The Q Street side of the mansion, with rear yard

What many readers may not know, however, is that Schneider and his family did not remain in the house for long. They apparently decided that the house was too large, and possibly too expensive to staff and maintain following an economic depression in 1893, and moved not long after its completion into a luxurious apartment in the Cairo Apartment Building in the 1600 block of Q Street, another Schneider landmark that would remain in the family until the 1960s. The mansion was immediately rented to the Chinese legation for a short period, then to Senator John Fairfield Dryden of New Jersey, and in 1914 to the Colonial School for Girls. The school had moved into the Schneider mansion from 1715 & 1725-29 Connecticut Avenue, where Miss Charlotte Crittenden Everett served as principal.

Outdoor athletics, 1914

The school was many things; both day students and boarding options mixed with college preparatory classes and finishing school seminars and training. According to its 1915-

The dining Room, as seen in 1914, set for students

1916 bulletin, the “true aim of education is to teach the individual to see clearly, to think independently, to imagine vividly, and to will nobly.” It noted that its location was “high and healthful” being just a block from Dupont Circle “in one of the best residential parts of the city.”  The shopping district and a plethora of street car lines were also highlighted in the school’s brochure. Meals were served in the dining room, where the mid-day luncheon only consisted of “milk, bouillon, and crackers.” The girls listened to evening lectures on such subjects as Moorish art and architecture, the Panama Canal tolls controversy, and The Effect of War on Womanhood by Jane Addams.

Romeo & Juliet performed in the ballroom in March, 1914

Thomas Schneider remained so close to the operation of the school that he invited all the students to attend the wedding of one of his daughters.  Much of the mansion retained the furnishings of the Schneiders, and rented along with the house. The girls rooms were likely to each have an open fireplace “for cheerfulness, and for healthfulness.” Classrooms, study halls, dining room, music studio, laboratory, offices, and several social gathering rooms completed the lavish environment.

The house also featured a large rear lawn along Q Street that was utilized for outdoor exercises. Tuition ranged from $800 to $1,000 per year, with incidental charges for such items as riding lessons, piano, breaking furniture, “corrective work in gymnastics,” and sewing.  When not attending classes in Latin, Greek, French and German, home training was taught as an “essential factor of an education which aids a girl to develop into a wise, true woman.” The school’s bulletin also stated, “The principal and her associates aim to help the girls realize the dignity and beauty of presiding in their homes with ease and graciousness.” History, art, rhetoric, biology, zoology, chemistry, economics, botany and “the Art of Church Organ” were also available.

Art students regularly visited the local galleries, including Veerhoff’s, then located farther downtown before its eventual relocation to Dupont Circle where it remained until the mid-1990s; however, all students were closely chaperoned any time they were off campus: “Under no circumstances are our pupils subjected to the embarrassment of appearing in public places unchaperoned” reads the school bulletin for 1915.

Students were charged 50 cents an hour when visiting doctors or dentists.  Principal Everett was joined by co-principal Jessie Truman in 1920, and the school continued to operate in the Schneider mansion until 1930, when the house was converted into a boardinghouse. Twenty-eight years later, the house was razed for a parking lot. In 1961, the nine story Dupont East apartment building was built on its site, and remains there today (illustrated below).

Copyright Paul Kelsey Williams

A Drive-In Once Across from Union Station? It's True!

Matchbook Cover from the Red Circle Food Shop

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that an Art Deco styled drive in once sat right across from Union Station.  Who would have though that land values and urban density would allow that to exist?  Well, construction began on the Red Circle Food Shop on February 25, 1937 - it was located on the northwest corner of Massachusetts Avenue and North Capitol Street, NW.  The unique round design provided both counter service inside, and curbside service for automobiles on a large rear parking lot.  It was designed by architect E. Burton Corning and built at a total cost of $24,450.   

Photographs and plans appeared in the March 1938 edition of Building News, seen here.  Its unique design of duel service meant that one kitchen was located on the ground floor, and a smaller one in a basement.  "The circular plan, says the architect, is the result of an attempt to 'get something different from the ordinary run of drive-in restaurants and at the same time keep the cost comparable" (Building News).  The angular size of the lot also played an important role in the circular design, and in fact, the building located there today follows this same curvature - the National Guard memorial Building (built 1990). 

The plan allowed for a small serving area, and a cashier that was able to handle transactions from both interior counter patrons, and those seated in their car.  Waiters entered one side, pick up their orders, pass

the cashier, and exit ont he other wide in a continual loop.  The exterior was clad in enameled red panels, lending a visual to the name Red Circle Food Shop.  A neon sign sat on top the roof, whose soffit concealed spot lights illuminating the chrome and enamel walls.  It was noted that the entire structure had year-round air conditioning.

It certainly is more interestigng than the bland food court now located on the lower level of Union Station, and would have been a fun place to catch a meal, waiting for a delayed train.    

Table service was handled from the swinging door at the right; windows were covered with flesh colored mirrors.

Dining room looking toward the cashier booth and entrance doorway. 

         Copyright Paul K. Williams

Architect & Counterfit Money Maker Frank R. White

Architect Frank Russell White was born in Brooklyn, New York on May 2, 1889.  He attended public schools in New York, and attended the Pennsylvania Military College between 1903 and 1904.  He first came to Washington in 1908 to work as an architect for the Harry Wardman Company, for whom he worked for the next twenty-five years. 

He specialized in apartment building designs for Harry Wardman, but also designed more than 5,000 single dwelling houses for the Wardman Company.  He and his wife Carolyn resided for most of his career at 4645 Alton Place, NW. 

Perhaps his best known apartment building is the Wardman Park Hotel & Apartments at 2660 Woodley Road in Woodley Park, completed in 1917.  White also designed three of the buildings at Clifton Terrace, 14^th and Clifton Street, in 1917, and the famed Chateau Thierry at 1920 S Street, in 1918.      

White established his own practice in 1922 with an office at 1340 F Street.  One of his primary clients included Christian Heurich, for which he designed the Heurich Building at 1627 K Street in 1939. 

The Great Depression was difficult for many of the country’s architects, but apparently especially so for Frank White.  He was arrested on October 26, 1931 in Baltimore, on the charge of altering and raising $1 notes to represent $100 notes.  He pleaded guilty in December of that year, and served a two year prison sentence.    

Copyright Paul K. Williams