Architect Reveals Hidden Details of Georgetown

Today, we're in Georgetown,

a neighborhood in Washington, D.C.

I'm Nick Potts, an architect,

and we're going to be doing a walking tour

of the neighborhood.

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Georgetown predated Washington, D.C.

It was founded in 1751 as its own independent port city

and didn't become incorporated until the later 19th century

when D.C. started growing.

We're going to start off on P Street,

between 30 and 31st street

in front of a row of federal townhouses.

This row of townhouse behind me is probably

one of the most quintessential rows

of townhouses in all of Georgetown.

They date from the early 19th century.

They're three stories with classic simple brick detailing.

So the two buildings on the right with the gas lamp,

those would be a little more what you would call

federal style, they're simpler.

They're most likely earlier than the ones on the left.

You can see a little bit more ornament evolving.

It's federal, it's simpler in detailing.

Generally, if it's a little more innate,

it's what you would call Georgian.

There's always been a little bit of conservatism

to how Georgetown was built

particularly in terms of the housing styles.

This area would've been built

before the bureaucratic center of Washington D.C.

spread to this area,

which is why the houses are tighter together.

These were row houses versus more freestanding villas

and this is really about fitting into

and being part of a community.

Because row houses occupied the entire street front,

the builders needed to find a way of getting people in,

and goods into the backyards

without moving through the main house.

One of the ways to do that

was to create a second entrance

immediately adjacent to the door

that allows someone to get to the backyard

without trudging through the house.

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Right now we're in Georgetown, near Dunbarton Oaks.

The house behind me shows residential architecture

at its most eclectic in the late 19th century

which is something fairly unusual for Georgetown.

Typically Georgetown houses are these

restrained, federal and Georgian style houses.

And this one is kind of the complete opposite.

It's a combination of revival styles,

a little bit of Queen Anne,

a little bit of colonial revival.

And even though the building is made of brick,

there are some elements

like the painting of the windows that are clear,

very clearly influenced by other movements,

like the shingle style and the work that people

like H.H. Richardson and McKim, Mead & White were doing.

So right after the Centennial,

we're looking back, towards our historical precedent

and borrowing little bits and pieces of building styles

from the past and collaging them

into something totally new and different.

The shingle style was a style

that developed in a lot of vacation towns.

You see them on the coast, in New England

places like Newport,

there's a style born out of actually

a misinterpretation of a photograph.

There was a very famous architectural photograph

that was published, taken of an old colonial house

and there was actually the back of the house.

It was a house in Newport and a salt box house.

And that photograph became its own style.

As you know, the media kind of replicated this image

and architects saw it.

It fueled the imaginations of architects

who are looking at history

and trying to find a truly American style.

So clearly this isn't a shingle style house

but it's taking little bits and pieces from that style

which was happening during the same period

when this was being built.

So the colonial revival elements you see here

are the brackets at the top of the cornice

and the painting of the window,

like the use of this half round window

which is looking at colonial style houses

but clearly it's not a colonial style house at all.

So there's a little bit of arts and crafts

and you can see that in the window on the second level,

that kind of leaded glass window.

There's also a little bit of Richardsonian Romanesque,

with the rusticate stone at the base

combined with the brick above it.

Now the tower that's a very strong Queen Anne sort of thing.

And what's really unique about this house

is the fact that it's just freely borrowing and sampling

from a lot of the other popular styles that were going on.

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So now we're in front of

the Laird-Dunlop Lincoln House on N street.

This house has a pretty long history and you can see it

in the massing of the house,

that it's grown and evolved over time

from a single mass to these side wings and service wings.

Because the houses here are generally so close to the road,

there's not really enough room

for a stoop that's perpendicular to the street.

The verticalized parallel to the street

because you can't project out to the road

over the sidewalk without crossing into the street.

So here's a switch back integrated into the stoop

and the dual switch back here,

it was most likely to give it a little more presence

and a little more prominence

even though the second stair really isn't necessary.

The house was originally designed without an architect.

It was a work of an amateur

designed by William Lovering,

though it's still a pretty masterful use

of these common materials.

You see these arch windows,

there's some really interesting brick work

where the brick tracks over the tops of the arches

and becomes a band course.

So it's really a pretty well done,

amateur work of architecture for a Federalist building.

So the idea of an architect really didn't exist

in the way that it does now.

A lot of times builders

were the people who are designing the buildings

but here there's someone who's designing it.

Who's not really a builder

but isn't trained in the same kind of formal sense

of having gone to an architecture school.

This house, interestingly,

like a lot of these houses in Georgetown

was owned by some famous names,

in particular Robert Todd Lincoln,

who was Abraham Lincoln's son

and more recently it was the house of Benjamin Bradley

who is the notable editor of the Washington Post.

So if you're buying a house in Georgetown,

essentially you're the caretaker of it

and you've probably shared it with some other notable names.

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Right now we're on the corner

of 28th street and Q in Georgetown.

And this is one of two identical houses

that were built within the same two blocks

which was based on a plan

published by Andrew Jackson Downing.

Downing is one of their first architects

in the United States

who started publishing books of architectural plans.

And this was an incredibly influential book,

called The Architecture of Country Houses.

Originally, both of these houses,

this one and its twin at 30th and Q

were both Italianate villas.

So they both had a central tower with brackets,

a small porch with arch windows and a fairly low roof line.

Interestingly, both of these houses have gone

through really dramatic changes.

The one at 28th and Q is radically different

from what it previously was.

The brackets were removed, it had a two story porch put on.

It was simplified into something

that almost looks like a little more colonial,

taking away a lot of the Victorian excesses

and making it just more prim and proper

than it was originally intended to be.

What happened to the tower on this

is the thing that always cracks me up about this one,

because it was meant to terminate vertically

and they're ran a cornus right in front of it.

They're almost ignoring its existence.

On the other hand, this house, it's twin at 30th and Q

was converted into an apartment house in the 1890s.

So the main house has maintained

a lot more of its main structure

but it's eclipsed by this huge wing

that expanded off to the right and extended the language.

And the two story portico is also a really unusual thing.

It almost looks like new Orleans here,

more than anything else.

You see these double height grand porticos down south

but you don't see them here in the Northeast.

The house did originally have a porch

but it was a little one story affair with arches.

So I'm not sure if someone took a trip down south

and decided they wanted some, a big veranda.

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Right now we're on 31st street near Tudor Place.

Originally the northern part of Georgetown was,

when it was first settled, it was three major estates.

Tudor Place, which were nearby,

Evermay and the Oaks which is now Dumbarton Oaks.

After the city was absorbed by Washington D.C.,

the parcels of these great estates

started being parceled up

and developed as development sites for new houses.

And the houses behind me are,

kind of show some of the range

of some of the unique styles

that started to emerge out of that.

Even though a lot of the row houses

tended to be a bit more kind of strictly federal,

these show a bit more trendy styles of buildings.

The red building behind us

is a really kind of prime example of a shingle style house.

And this is a very pure expression

of what was going on in the shingle style

which was an interpretation of what,

in the 19th century right around the time

of the centennial of the country,

people thought was kind of the original true American style.

And you see little bits and pieces

of what would've been colonial buildings.

You see spindles that could've been on a staircase.

You see very small panes of windows

introduced into larger panes.

You see grids, you see fret work

and you see shingles.

Next to it is a different interpretation

of things that were going on in the 1880s.

The building to the right is more of a typical row house

that takes advantage of technology.

And particularly notable on this one

are the the pressed bricks that you see

in the spandrels and in the impediments of the row house.

So even though this would've been a,

a developer building

and not something that was kind of at the forefront

or built bespoke, it was still trying to personalize itself.

Like those pyramid bricks over the third floor balcony

and these Louis Sullivan sort of patterns,

in the bricks are taking some styles,

motifs with using a very kind of common,

everyday material brick that could be made in a factory.

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So right now we're in the 2700 block of P street

and from the narrowest house in Georgetown.

Georgetown is really a city of extremes.

We've seen a lot of the large elite houses

but on the other side there's a port town

and there was a large worker population.

So the very, very compact wood frame houses like this

were meant to serve the workers of the ports.

And so we end up with these very narrow houses

including this one, which is barely 10 feet wide.

So essentially the width of a room.

And what's been interesting,

is these were originally intended to be

very working class buildings

but clearly they're not anymore.

The working class house is almost always wood frame

because it's frankly cheaper to build

because wood is fairly easy to manipulate.

There's an ability to introduce simple things

like these carved brackets.

These things that can be also made in a factory offsite.

Particularly when you're getting to the 19th century,

there are these catalogs and molding profiles,

cornices, shutters, doors

that someone can add at a minimal cost.

So these are working class houses

but they're not tenements.

And there's an ability for people of modest means

to surround themselves even though their house is small

with the trappings of the middle class.

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Now we're on Q Street,

in front of a row of Italianate twin houses.

Right now we're immediately after the Civil War,

the country is growing, the country is unified again,

the capital of the country which was once divided,

is now suddenly relevant and we have professionals

moving to the city, working for the government,

wanting to live in a nice neighborhood

that's close to the center of government

for our newly unified nation.

So these houses are interesting

because it was a planned development.

It's four twin houses, so eight units

that are done by the same developer and the same architect

and they vary, but it's still, it's one development

and essentially planning

an entire street front of the community.

We're looking back to France again

and this is similar to

some of the French Second Empire buildings

that were happening in the monumental core,

like the executive office building

only taken to the scale of a house.

And it's the same motifs, the mansard roofs, the brackets.

So each of these houses,

it takes a lot of the same element and reshuffles them.

So each of the houses has the tower

and some of them it's at the middle,

some of them it's off to one side.

The same thing with the bracket,

some of the windows project, some are more flat.

So it's trying to hide and almost disguise

the fact that this was a kind of a mass development

of eight houses in four buildings

by kind of breaking them up into their component parts

and make them seem a little more

different and differentiated,

which makes sense because these were a more luxury house.

People wanted to express themselves

and not feel like they were buying

the same thing that their neighbor was.

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So right now we're at the C&O Canal and aqueduct,

in the southern part of Georgetown,

which is immediately south of Main Street.

And when it was founded in 1751, Georgetown was a port town.

This was because it was the furthest point

north on the Potomac

where ocean going vessels could navigate.

So what happened was the development of canals

and George Washington was actually

a huge proponent of canals.

You have to remember,

this is before railroads and canals were a way

of making unnavigable parts of the country available.

So just like the Erie Canal in New York,

D.C. had its own version, in the Potomac Canal.

So it really was a network of transportation.

Already by the 1830s, when it was built

the C&O Canal was a money loser.

By this point, railroads had already started

taking over as the preferred transportation network

but the canal kept going and it was almost breaking even

up until the 1920s when there was a flood

and it was essentially abandoned.

And so what was left in Georgetown

was actually a lot less industry once the canal

was no longer functional

and there's a point where stuff was built

and there just wasn't enough wealth to demolish it.

And that's really why Georgetown

in its current state exists.

It wasn't quite wealthy enough

to tear itself down and reinvent itself.

And so what we have now

is this very intact 19th century city

within the footprint of D.C.

At this point, there's been a complete inversion,

particularly in America about the value of waterfronts.

Essentially up until recent history,

the waterfront was the least desirable place

that you'd wanna live.

It's where the industry was.

Boats made a lot of noise

and they're really a working environment.

And now that we've deindustrialized our waterfronts,

this is the first time

when this would've been a desirable place to live.

And you can really see the change,

walking around Georgetown with its restaurants,

these expensive houses, people eating on the sidewalk

and that sort of idea of the recreational waterfront

that didn't previously exist.

[upbeat music]

Georgetown to me is really just a great microcosm

of urbanism in America.

Even though we think of it

as desirable neighborhood to live,

if we look behind the surface,

it actually tracks a lot of the trends that existed

when our neighborhood started building cities,

which is when we started realizing

that we need cities rather than just rural farmland.

And part of why Georgetown was so unique

is that it benefited from the fact

that Washington was growing

right around the same time that it was declining.

In a lot of cities there are declining,

you don't have this, you know, consumer to move in

and Washington had this ready made population

of people who could come in

and do an early version of gentrification,

rediscovering this thing that had already been built

and turning it into something totally new.

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