Kalorama: A History of Washington's Hilltop Enclave

Kalorama is a wealthy residential district in Northwest Washington, D.C., spread across two adjoining neighborhoods — Sheridan-Kalorama and Kalorama Triangle — on the high ground above Rock Creek and Dupont Circle. Its history runs from a poet-diplomat's country estate to a Gilded Age enclave of mansions, the heart of Embassy Row, and the post–White House home of presidents. This page is the short version; the timeline gives the dated outline, and the resources page lists the archives behind it.

A poet's "beautiful view"

The name comes from Greek for a fine or beautiful view.¹ The land was part of the colonial "Widow's Mite" tract, held in the 18th century by Anthony Holmead, and a classical house called Belair stood near 23rd and S Streets NW.³ In 1807 the poet and diplomat Joel Barlow bought the estate and renamed it Kalorama.² Barlow had the house remodeled and expanded around 1810 to designs by the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who added a wing, a Greek-temple gatehouse, and a family mausoleum.⁴ Under Barlow the estate became a political and intellectual salon visited by Thomas Jefferson, and the inventor Robert Fulton was a long-term guest who experimented on its millpond.⁵ Barlow died in 1812 in Poland while serving as U.S. Minister to France, during Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.⁶

After Barlow, George Bomford acquired Kalorama and expanded the estate to about 91 acres.⁷ During the Civil War the isolated property was commandeered as a smallpox hospital; the mansion was later gutted by fire in 1865 and eventually demolished as the land was subdivided.⁸

From estate to Gilded Age enclave

In 1886 about four-fifths of the estate — "Kalorama Heights" — was sold to a syndicate for roughly $400,000, launching residential subdivision, with the alignment of Connecticut Avenue dividing the land into the two neighborhoods that exist today.⁹ Building accelerated after streetcar service reached Connecticut Avenue and Columbia Road in 1898.¹²

The two districts were later recognized for that early-20th-century fabric. The Kalorama Triangle Historic District — roughly bounded by Connecticut Avenue, Columbia Road, and Calvert Street NW, with about 353 contributing buildings — was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 4, 1987.¹⁰¹¹ The larger Sheridan-Kalorama Historic District, covering roughly 190 acres with more than 600 contributing structures, was listed on October 30, 1989.¹³¹⁴ About three-quarters of Sheridan-Kalorama's buildings existed by 1929.¹⁵

Sheridan Circle and Embassy Row

At the center of Sheridan-Kalorama, the equestrian statue of General Philip H. Sheridan was sculpted by Gutzon Borglum — later the sculptor of Mount Rushmore — and dedicated on November 25, 1908, with President Theodore Roosevelt attending.¹⁶ The circle sits where Massachusetts Avenue, 23rd Street, and R Street NW meet, in the heart of what became Embassy Row.¹⁷ Massachusetts Avenue's "Millionaires' Row" turned into Embassy Row after the 1929 Depression led wealthy owners to sell their mansions, with the greatest influx of embassies arriving in the 1940s and early 1950s.¹⁸

Several of those mansions are landmarks. Anderson House at 2118 Massachusetts Avenue NW, a Beaux-Arts mansion built in 1902–1905, has been the headquarters and museum of the Society of the Cincinnati since 1939.²⁵ The Lothrop Mansion at 2001 Connecticut Avenue NW was built around 1908–1909 for Woodward & Lothrop co-founder Alvin Mason Lothrop.²⁴ And The Lindens on Kalorama Road, often called the oldest house in Washington, was actually built in 1754 in Danvers, Massachusetts, then dismantled, shipped, and reassembled in the District in 1935–1937.²³

The Woodrow Wilson House and a presidents' neighborhood

The neighborhood's most famous house is the Woodrow Wilson House at 2340 S Street NW, a Georgian Revival home designed by Waddy B. Wood and built in 1915.¹⁹ Woodrow Wilson moved in on March 4, 1921 — the day his presidency ended — and died there on February 3, 1924, the only U.S. president to remain in Washington after leaving office.²⁰ Edith Bolling Wilson lived in the house until her death in 1961 and left it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which runs it as a museum; it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.²¹²²

Wilson was far from the only national figure to live in Kalorama. William Howard Taft lived at 2215 Wyoming Avenue NW while Chief Justice and died there in 1930; Warren G. Harding lived at 2314 Wyoming Avenue NW as a senator before his presidency; and Herbert Hoover lived at 2300 S Street NW as Secretary of Commerce.²⁹³⁰ In our own time, Barack and Michelle Obama bought a Kalorama home at 2446 Belmont Road NW in 2017, and Jeff Bezos bought the former Textile Museum on S Street NW in 2016.²⁷²⁸ (Most of the historic presidents lived here before or after their time in office, not during — and the popular claim that Kalorama has housed "more presidents than any other neighborhood" is a tour line, not an established fact.)

Among the neighborhood's quieter landmarks is Mitchell Park in Sheridan-Kalorama, given to the District by Elizabeth Mitchell in 1918 — with the condition, still honored, that her dog's grave not be disturbed.²⁶

Every specific date, name, and figure above is sourced to the references below and on the resources page. Found an error? Please tell us.