Monthly Archives: July 2009

This week GM has been delving into the varieties of historic architecture that we have around Georgetown. For the final installment he is going to highlight the odd ones out, in other words the homes that weren’t built in the dominant styles of Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, Second Empire, Queen Anne and Romanesque.

First up: Neoclassical

The Neoclassical style was born at the 1893 Chicago’s World Columbian Exposition, where some of the greatest architects of the time gathered to design a grand city of monumental buildings based in the classical style. Since nearly 26 million people visited the “White City”, this new style had wide exposure and quickly became a dominant building style in the early 20th century. Downtown DC was basically rebuilt in the White City’s image.

But for some reason it simply did not make much of a dent in Georgetown. There is just one Neoclassical building that GM could find, the Hurt Home across from Montrose Park:

Up in the same neigborhood, you’ll find a row of French Eclectic homes at the corner of Q and 30th. They’re identifiable by their steeply pitched roofs and round towers. This style was popular from the 1910’s to the 1920’s:

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Scattered throughout Georgetown are a couple examples of Gothic Revival. The most obvious example is Christ Church, but a couple of domestic examples of Gothic Revival are clustered at the top of 31st st.:

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There’s a Dutch Colonial on S St. (you can tell them by their flared eaves):

And surprisingly enough, there are even a couple straight up modern homes in Georgetown. An Art Moderne home on Reservoir:

and Joe Alsop’s home:

And last, but certainly not least, there’s a Japanese house on 28th st. Does anyone know the story about this house? It’s so cool:

Again, GM would like to credit Virginia and Lee McAlester’s “A Field Guide to American Houses“ for providing most of the historical information presented this week.