Brodhead-Bell-Morton House (Levi P. Morton House)
- Architects
- John Russell Pope John Fraser
- Year
- 1879
- Style
- Beaux-Arts
- City
- Washington, DC
- Collection
- the city beautiful
Built in 1879 to designs by John Fraser and comprehensively remodeled in 1912 by John Russell Pope, this Rhode Island Avenue mansion has cycled through an unusually eventful roster of occupants — Alexander Graham Bell and his wife Mabel Gardiner Hubbard, Vice President Levi P. Morton, the Embassy of Russia, and Secretary of State Elihu Root among them. In 2016, Hungary bought the building from the American Coatings Association to house its own embassy.
the building
Fraser to Pope, 1879 to 1912. John Fraser built the house in 1879 for John T. and Jessie Willis Brodhead; more than three decades later, John Russell Pope carried out a comprehensive remodel in 1912, layering his Beaux-Arts sensibility onto Fraser's Victorian original.
the style
Fraser's original 1879 house was Victorian in style; when John Russell Pope remodeled it in 1912, he gave it a Beaux-Arts overlay, layering two different style eras onto a single facade within a few decades of each other.
More on Beaux-Artssignificance
The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites. After decades as headquarters of the National Paint, Varnish, and Lacquer Association (1939-2016), it became the Embassy of Hungary in 2016, when a statue titled the Boy from Pest was unveiled in front of the building.
nearby
- United States Daughters of 1812 National Headquarters
- Grace Reformed Church, Sunday School, & Parish House
- Robert Simpson Woodward House
- Carnegie Institution of Washington, Administration Building
- National City Christian Church
- Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church