Wadsworth, Herbert House (Sulgrave Club)
- Style
- Beaux-Arts
- City
- Washington, DC
- Collection
- the city beautiful
This Beaux-Arts mansion on Embassy Row was built for Herbert and Martha Blow Wadsworth and designed by architect George Cary. During World War I it served as the local headquarters for the American Red Cross, and in 1932 a group of Washington women led by Mabel Thorp Boardman bought the house to found the Sulgrave Club, a private women's club that still occupies it today.
the building
Wartime Red Cross headquarters. During World War I the Wadsworth House was pressed into service as the local headquarters of the American Red Cross before its later transformation into a private club.
Conversion to clubhouse. In 1932, Mabel Thorp Boardman's group hired architect Frederick H. Brooke to renovate the triangular-shaped mansion into the Sulgrave Club's clubhouse.
the style
Built in the Beaux-Arts idiom common to Embassy Row's grandest mansions, the building is one of only two large houses remaining on Dupont Circle itself, alongside the Patterson Mansion.
More on Beaux-Artsthe architect
George Cary designed the original Wadsworth mansion; Frederick H. Brooke later carried out its 1932 renovation into the Sulgrave Club.
significance
The building was added to the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites in 1964 and the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, and is a contributing property to both the Dupont Circle and Massachusetts Avenue Historic Districts.
nearby
- Andrew Mellon Building
- Patterson House (Washington Club)
- Dupont Circle Building
- Whittemore, Sarah Adams, House (Weeks House; Woman's National Democratic Club)
- Moore, Clarence, House (Old Canadian Embassy)
- Blaine, James G., House