Discovering a "Carriage House" That Was Built as a Prominent Artist Studio in Dupont Circle.

Most people assume that an old brick structure in the alley on their rear lot is simply a carriage house.  Most are indeed, but its always a thrill to research a rare alley structure that was actually built as a studio for a prominent artist.  The owner of the vacant lot where 1749 18^th Street, NW was to be constructed, Charles W. Handy, applied for and was granted an Application for Permit to Build numbered 161 for its construction on April 13, 1892.  He neglected to list an architect responsible for its design, but did list contractor C. V. Trott as the builder at a cost of $9,000. 

The rare rear building located behind 1749 18^th Street was built to house the studio of sculptor Henry J. Ellicott, known especially for his Winfield Scott Handcock equestrian statue at 7^th and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

Ellicott obtained building permit number 187 for a ‘studio’ on July 6, 1894.  He listed prominent architect Alfred B. Mullett as responsible for its design, built at a cost of $1,600.  It measures forty-two feet wide by thirty feet deep.  It was constructed by the Galloway & Son construction company.  Not surprising in a city where building was a primary industry, architects, contractors and artists built their own studios, many of which were located along the quieter alleyways. The Historic Alley Buildings Survey identified only five artistic studios, however: the John J. Earley Studio (DC landmark), Mary Bussard Studio, Henry Ellicott Studio, the Harvey Page Studio and the Joseph Wilkinson Workshop.

Henry Jackson Ellicott, an American sculptor and architectural sculptor, was best known for his work on American Civil War monuments.  Elliott had been born on either June 23, 1847 in White Hall, Maryland. 

One of seven children born to James P. Ellicott and Fannie Adelaide Ince, he attended Rock Hill College School in Ellicott City, Maryland, and Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C.  He studied at Georgetown Medical College, and may have served in the Civil War.[1]

He studied at Georgetown Medical College, then, at age 19, he completed a larger-than-life plaster statue of Abraham Lincoln – likely an entry in the Lincoln Monument Association's competition for a marble statue – that was exhibited for two years in the United States Capitol rotunda.  The competition was won by sculptor Lot Flannery, whose statue is at District of Columbia City Hall.  Seen below in August 1868 in the rotunda, the fate of Ellicott's Lincoln statue is unknown.

He studied at the National Academy of Design in New York City from 1867 to 1870, under William Henry Powell and Emanuel Leutze; and later studied under Constantino Brumidi. 

He was creating monuments for placement in cemeteries as early as 1870 and, according to the United States census of that year, he was living in Manhattan and was identifying himself as a sculptor–not as a student.  In the 1876 New York City directory, he is again listed as a sculptor.  His first two commissions were for monuments at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Lothian, Maryland (1870) and Greenwood Cemetery in Laurel, Maryland.  He was the likely modeler of an Infantryman statue for J. W. Fiske Architectural Metals, Inc. of New York City that was mass-produced and used in numerous municipal Civil War monuments.  Company records list the sculptor's name as “Allicot.”

In 1876, he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and modeled architectural sculpture on buildings for the 1876 Centennial Exposition.  He remained in Philadelphia and exhibited occasionally at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts between 1878 and 1891.  Ellicott did list himself as an architect in Philadelphia city directories for 1884 and 1890. According to Fielding, he had studied drawing at the National Academy of Design in New York.  He married Lida Dyre about 1883.  She had been born in Maryland in February of 1865. 

Ellicott was appointed under the Harrison administration Superintendent and Chief Modeler for the U.S. Treasury Department in 1889, responsible for all federal monuments.[2]  He moved to Washington, D.C., where he listed his occupation as a sculpture in the Corcoran Building, with a residence at 2026 H Street, NW in 1894.  He and his wife were listed as living at 1752 S Street, NW in the 1896 Elite List.  It was a speculative house built along with 1740-1750 by the Kennedy & Davis firm, who obtained their building permit on October 17, 1892.  By the time the 1900 census was enumerated he and his wife owned and lived at 1868 California Avenue, NW, with a live in servant and a boarder.  Ellicott died on February 11, 1901 at age 54.  

The Studio Building

The studio building itself seems to have originally been part of the plot occupied by 1752 S Street, NW, but was later subdivided.  It is seen on the 1939 Baist Map.  Both the house and the studio were occupied by various members of the Berry family, according to the 1916 City Directory, the first time the studio was listed as having a resident, obviously altered to include a kitchen and proper bedroom.  The directory listed J. Talburtt Berry, an inspector, and Louise Berry, a teacher at the Weightman School.  The house at 1752 S Street had occupants listed as Edna C. Berry, a clerk, M. Heath Berry, a health inspector, and Roger B. Berry, a draftsman at the Barber & Ross real estate development firm.  They had all moved into the two structures from a prior address of 1919 K Street, NW, where they were listed as roomers. 

A later, 1930 census reveals that Louise, Edna, and M. Heath were siblings, who then all resided at 1820 Lamont Street, NW, owned by Louise.  Roger Berry was their father.  She had been born in 1882, Edna in 1895, and Heath in 1897, all in Maryland.         

Roger and Edith Williams sold the studio building to the Walter M. Ballard Company on May 14, 1925 for $3,500, financing the purchase.  The Ballard Company was engaged in the office furniture, wood and steel filing cabinets, and office supply business, with a storefront location at 1340 G Street, NW.  It is likely that they utilized the former studio as storage space, as no persons were listed at the address in the yearly City Directories during their tenure. 

The Ballard Company defaulted on their loan, however, and the studio building reverted to its former owners, the Williams’s.  They eventually sold it to Catherine Wygood, on January 13, 1947.  She in turn sold it on February 23, 1954 to Jocelyn Ball Baxter.  She owned the house at 1749 18^th Street, and ran it as an apartment house, according to the Haines Directory.  There is no evidence, however, that the former studio was used as housing during her tenure of ownership.   

Several liens by the city government were paid on the property in 1994, and Baxter’s estate sold the former studio on December 11, 1998

Ellicott’s Selected Works:

     - Abraham Lincoln, plaster, current whereabouts unknown, ca. 1866. Exhibited in United States Capitol rotunda, 1866-68.

    - Goddess of Commerce, Goddess of Protection, Goddess of Mechanism, zinc, atop New England Mutual Life Insurance Building, Boston, Massachusetts, 1875, Nathaniel Jeremiah Bradlee, architect (demolished 1946).  The figure group was once the symbol of the company, but the statues were melted down in a World War II scrap-metal drive.

    - Recording Angel, atop Thomas P. Duncan Mausoleum, Union Dale Cemetery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1880, Theophilus Parsons Chandler, Jr., architect.

    - Bas-relief portrait of John Sartain, bronze, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ca. 1888.

    - Architectural sculpture: 33 Keystones (Ethnological Heads), granite, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 1891 (above). Carved by Ellicott and William Boyd.

    - Bust of George M. Dallas, marble, United States Senate Vice Presidential Bust Collection, United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., 1893.

    - Francis Elias Spinner, bronze, Myers Park, Herkimer, New York, 1894.

    - Zebulon Baird Vance Monument, bronze, North Carolina State Capitol, Raleigh, North Carolina, 1899-1900.

    - Bust of Rear-Admiral George W. Melville, bronze, United States Naval Academy Museum, Annapolis, Maryland.

Civil War Monuments:

   - Goddess of Victory, bronze, atop Soldiers' Monument, Veterans Park, Holyoke, Massachusetts, 1875-76.

    - Colonel James Cameron, granite with brass sword, Civil War Monument, Cameron Park, Sunbury, Pennsylvania, 1879.[12]

    - Infantryman, bronze, Civil War Monument, Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1881. The Sailor and Cavalry Officer figures were modeled by William Rudolf O'Donovan.

    - Cavalryman, bronze, 2nd Pennsylvania Cavalry Monument, Gettysburg Battlefield, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1887-89.

    - Kneeling Cavalryman, bronze, 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry Monument, Gettysburg Battlefield, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1889-90.

    - Equestrian statue of General Winfield Scott Hancock, bronze, Washington, D.C., 1889-96 (left).

    - Equestrian statue of General George B. McClellan, bronze, City Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1891-94.

 Copyright Paul K. Williams

           

          

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[1] An 1896 New York Times article implies that the 16-year-old Ellicott was present at the July 1863 Battle of Gettysburg.

[2] National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1904).

History Mystery: Steamer Trunks of the Grant Family

Many years ago, an owner of 1711 New Hampshire Avenue, NW approached us with a history mystery; she had found several steamer trunks with the name ‘Grant’ painted on them, and wondered if it were at all possible they could have once belonged to the Ulysses Grant family.  We not only found the connection, but found a Russian Princess to boot. 

The house had been built in 1911-1912 at a cost of $25,000 by Franklin Sanner, who was developing other large properties close by as speculative development.  It was designed by Albert Beers.      

Owner Sanner sold the residence to Ida Honoré Grant on September 17, 1912, as recorded Liber 3547, Folio 366. She listed herself in the 1915 City Directory as the widow of Frederick Dent Grant, the eldest son of famed Civil War General and President Ulysses S. Grant, and was from a wealthy and prominent Chicago family. She was listed as the sole resident at the address in the 1913 City Directory.  The couple is pictured at right. 

As the son of Ulysses S. and Julia Dent Grant, Frederick Dent Grant was born on May 30, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended West Point Military Academy, graduating with the class of 1871. He was assigned on June 12th of that year to the Fourth United States Cavalry, spending two years on outpost duty taking part in combats with Indians in the far west. As a result, he was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant and Lieutenant-Colonel by 1873, and eventually resigned his military commission in June of 1881.

Shortly thereafter, he married Ida Honoré, the daughter of a Chicago millionaire. They resided in New York with the widow of General Grant. He served as republican Secretary of State for New York from 1887 to 1888. Also during this time, Frederick served as minister to Australia, and was Police Commissioner of New York City at the outbreak of the Spanish War, when he became Colonel of the Fourteenth New York Volunteer Infantry, and was soon thereafter appointed a Brigadier-General of the United States Volunteers.

During the Spanish War, he served in Puerto Rico, and following the war, remained in command of the military district of San Juan. Shortly thereafter, he transferred to the Philippines, commanding the Second Brigade of the First Division of the Eighth Army Corps. While there, he took part in the battles of Big Bend and Binacian, afterward being transferred to the Second Brigade of the Second Division, advancing on Northern Luzon and Zamballes.

He returned to the States in 1901 when he was appointed a Brigadier General in the United States Army and assigned to command the Department of Texas, with headquarters in San Antonio. In 1902, he was transferred once again to the Philippines, to the Sixth Separate Brigade in Samar, where he received the surrender of the last insurgent forces.

In 1914, Ida H. Grant apparently rented the house to U.S. Senator William P. Jackson (left) and his wife, as they were listed as the occupants in the City Directory for that year. Incidentally, another William P. Jackson appeared in the same City Directory, and listed his profession as an Assistant Inspector General in the United States Army, boarding at the Army and Navy Club.

The daughter of Ida H. and Frederick Grant, Julia, was born in the White House in 1876, while her father was fighting in the Indian Wars in the West. Her grandfather, Ulysses Simpson Grant, was then serving his second term as President. She grew up in Vienna where Frederick later served as the American minister to the court of Emperor Franz Joseph.

In 1899, at the Newport, Rhode Island home of her aunt, Mrs. Potter Palmer of Chicago, Julia Grant was married to Prince Michael Cantacuzene, chief military adjutant to Grand Duke Nicholas, the grandson of Tsar Nicholas I. For the following eighteen years, she lived on her husband’s vast estates near St. Petersburg and in the Crimea until the Russian Revolution forced them to escape to Sweden.

Princess Cantacuzene, as she preferred to be known, became the frequent lecturer and author of three books, all relating to her life in Russia before and during the Revolution. As a popular lecturer, she was an outspoken foe of Communism as well as of the New Deal during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1934, she regained the American citizenship she had given up at her marriage thirty five years earlier. She died in 1975 in the Dresden Apartment building at 2126 Connecticut Avenue at the age of ninety-nine.  Interestingly, it was designed by Albert H. Beers in 1909, just two years before he designed the house of her mother at 1711 New Hampshire Avenue.

The son of Frederick Dent and Ida Honoré Grant, Ulysses S. Grant III, was born on July 4, 1881 in Chicago. He too was raised primarily in Vienna, attending the Thresianum school there before attending the Cutler School in New York City and Columbia University in 1898. He graduated from Westpoint Military Academy in 1903, and graduated from the U.S. Engineer’s School in 1908. He married Edith Root, daughter of the Secretary of State Elihu Root, the Secretary of State under Theodore Roosevelt on November 27, 1907, and together they lived in San Francisco.

He became a D.C. resident in 1925, and lived at 2117 LeRoy Place, N.W., when he became active in numerous urban planning affairs, including serving as the Executive Director of the National Capitol Park and Planning Commission. At the time of his death in 1968, he maintained a residence at 1255 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W.

The last will and testament of Ida Honoreé Grant has several inclusions that offer insight into the lifestyle that she led while in residence at 1711 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. It was written on September 2, 1926, and entered into probate on September 8, 1930, shortly following her death.

The real estate at 1711 New Hampshire Avenue was willed exclusively to her son Ulysses S. Grant III (left) upon Ida Honore Grant’s death in February of 1930.

Her daughter Julia Grant Cantacuzene and son Ulysses S. Grant III were to split most of the personal artifacts and furnishings of the home, including "all clothing and wearing apparel, jewelry and articles of personal use and adornment, books, pictures, bric-a-brac, silver and household furniture, articles and effects, of every kind and description, as well as any other tangible personal property and effects, of which I may die possessed." Ida was also proud that she was able to keep the aggregate value of multiple bonds "intact and equal to the value of said property at the time it was left to me, so that I might be able to make this bequest and pass it on...to our children." The bonds in question were housed in her safe deposit box at the American Security and Trust Company in Washington, D.C. It was her wish that the children would be able to retain the bonds at their face value to pass on to their children in remembrance of their father Frederick Dent Grant.

The remainder value of the estate was to be placed in a Trust at the American Security and Trust Company and equally dispersed over the course of 21 years in equal parts to her son and daughter. She expressed the trustees "to be very conservative, and to purchase only such bonds or other securities, which, after careful investigation, they believe to be safe and secure. I prefer that my trustees invest in such securities rather than in real estate."

Her daughter Julia was specifically granted the sum of $50,000, to be gleaned from the proceeds of the sale of real estate owned in the state of Illinois. She also noted that her daughter was "amply provided for by a trust created by my sister, Bertha Honoré Palmer, which Trust has greatly increased in value through the able management of my brother, Adrian C. Honoré."

To her son, she specified that "all letters and papers of an official, business or personal character owned by me, including those which belonged to his father, and also those which belonged to his grandfather, General Ulysses S. Grant." She made that bequeath "in order to carry out my late husband's express wish that his son should possess these letters and papers."

The Nicaraguan Legation: 1931 to 1936

The residence at 1711 New Hampshire was rented by Ulysses S. Grant III following the death of his mother Ida Honoré Grant in early 1930 to the Government of Nicaragua for us its Legation. The Charge d’Affaires of Nicaragua at the time, Dr. Henri De Bayle, both resided and worked at 1711 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W., during this period. 

Copyright Paul K. Williams