National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

6. Function or Use
Historic Functions (enter categories from instructions)
DOMESTIC/Single Dwelling__________
DOMESTIC/Multiple Dwelling________
CQMMERCE/TRADE/Specialtv Store_____
7. Description
Architectural Classification
(enter categories from instructions)
LATE VICTORIAN
T.ATE 19th & 20th
LATE 19 Hi & EARLY
I
CENTURY REVIVALS
20th CENTURY AMERICAN MOVTS.
*
Describe present and historic physical appearance.
Current Functions (enter categories from instructions)
DOMESTIC/Single Dwelling_________
DOMESTIC/Multiple Dwelling_______
COMMERCE/TRADE/Specialty Store____
Materials (enter categories from instructions)
foundation
walls
roof
other
Stone -/ *
Wood
Brick
Slate/Asphalt
The Cleveland Park Historic District, located in the northwest sector of
the District of Columbia, is an intact community integrating residences,
apartment buildings and neighborhood retail shopping located on a hill
overlooking the city center and separated from it by Rock Creek Park, a deep
geological chasm. The Cleveland Park Historic District includes approximately
280 acres and approximately 1100 resources. It is bounded on the west and
east by two six-lane avenues (Wisconsin and Connecticut) radiating from the
city center and on the north and south by natural boundaries formed by open
space, ravines and parkland (Klingle Valley and Melvin Hazen Park).
The topography of the Cleveland Park Historic District is hilly and
includes some of the highest land levels in the District of Columbia.
Wisconsin Avenue, the western boundary, follows a high ridge and from it the
land slopes downhill to Connecticut Avenue, the eastern boundary. Many of the
streets within the Cleveland Park Historic District are curvilinear following
the contours of the land and most are six blocks long oriented east-west
connecting the two avenues. The park-like atmosphere of the neighborhood is
further enhanced by the numerous large trees, generous front yards and open
space of the estates and parks which form the northern and southern boundaries
(the Melvin Hazen Park and the Intelsat property to the North; Klingle
Valley, Tregaron, Twin Oaks and the Cathedral grounds to the South).
The Cleveland Park Historic District comprises a mixture of building
types including several large intact 18th and 19th century country estates,
numerous late-Victorian suburban homes, early 20th century single family
homes, duplexes and garden apartments, large suburban apartment complexes, and
an unusually intact example of a 1920's -1930's linear neighborhood retail
commercial/apartment development along Connecticut Avenue.
A distinguishing feature of the Cleveland Park Historic District is the
large number of frame houses with local Rock Creek granite foundations, in a
city of predominantly brick structures, representing a full range of
architectural styles popular around the turn of the century including:
Carpenter Gothic, Italianate, Queen Anne, Shingle, Dutch Colonial Revival,
Mission Revival, Colonial Revival, Neoclassical, Japanese influence, Craftsman
Bungalows, Developer's Georgian and Mission, Tudor revival, English Cottage,
Foursquare, Sears and Roebuck houses in various styles, Beaux Arts, Art Deco,
International style, and modern or contemporary. Subsequently brick and some
stone houses were built in the teens and twenties. Stylistically, the
neighborhood is a veritable museum of changing tastes representing the overlay
of history in a continuous line of development from 1894 to 1941.
See continuation sheet