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Houses With A Prospect
The early mansions of wealthy ship owners, merchants and land speculators in this part of Georgetown were built high above the Potomac River with fine views, or prospects, of the harbor filled with ships and the wilds of Virginia on the other side. Streets were narrow and paved with stones. The residences were often self-sufficient with livestock, orchards and kitchen gardens alongside formally designed landscapes.
The beautiful Georgian house behind you was finished in 1789 for the first secretary of the navy, Benjamin Stoddert, who called it Halcyon House. The original house was built to face the river, so the front door could not be seen from the street. The Palladian façade you see was added much later. Its handsome gardens were laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, who planned the city of Washington. After a century of neglect, the house was restored by John Dreyfuss, who in the 1970s embarked on a 17-year effort to bring the house back to its original glory.
Prospect Street is still a popular promenade, linking Georgetown University to the town's commercial streets -- Wisconsin Avenue and M Street. On the south side of M at the foot of 34th is Forrest-Marbury House, where George Washington dined in 1791 with Georgetown landholders to secure land for the new District of Columbia. West of the house is a beautiful park that marks the site of the home of Francis Scott Key, author of The Star-Spangled Banner. The house was built in 1802 and demolished in 1949 for the construction of an elevated highway along the waterfront. It was this demolition and the public outcry that prompted Congress to pass the Old Georgetown Act, setting the boundaries of the Georgetown Historic District and protecting the buildings within its limits. The adjacent bridge -- Key Bridge -- was named in Key's honor. |