National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

NFS Form 10-900-a 0MB Approval No. 1024-O018
(8*6)
United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service
National Register of Historic Places
Continuation Sheet
CLEVELAND PARK HISTORIC DISTRICT
WASHINGTON D.C.
Section number 8 Page z
major architectural style in vogue between 1890 and 1941, and represents the
changing tastes in architectural styles but at the same time is distinctive as
a visually unified neighborhood. The district contains many excellent and
unaltered examples of the major architectural movements in the United States
including Carpenter Gothic, Italianate, Queen Anne, Shingle, Dutch Colonial
Revival, Neoclassical, Craftsman Bungalows, Tudor Revival, Art Deco, and
contemporary. The architectural integrity of the community is present in
structures ranging from the vernacular Rosedale of 1794 to a house by I.M. Pei
of 1962. (Criteria C; Area Of Significance: Architecture)
(5) Cleveland Park is significant because it contains excellent and
largely unaltered examples of the work of architects of both national and
local stature, including Charles Adams Platt, R.J.Beall, Jr., Pelz and
Carlyle, Frederick B. Pyle, Waddy B. Wood, Waldron Faulkner, William Lescaze,
I.M. Pei, Winthrop Faulkner, Appleton P. Clark, Jr. Arthur B. Heaton, and
Alien and Kenway. (Criteria C; Area Of Significance: Architecture)
Further, the proposed district possesses sufficient integrity to convey,
represent, and contain the values and qualities for which it is judged
significant, and sufficient time has passed since it achieved significance to
permit its professional evaluation in its historical context.
STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
The Cleveland Park Historic District embodies the distinctive
characteristics of an electric streetcar suburb and is a significant example
of this type of community planning and development in Washington D.C.
including significant examples of all the most popular domestic architectural
styles of that period. Cleveland Park was created by John Sherman, an
enlightened and benevolent real estate developer, who hired individual
architects to design one-of-a-kind houses, provided amenities to enhance and
unify the neighborhood and fostered a sense of pride in the community. The
district has a distinctive core of architect-designed late Victorian frame
houses built between 1894 and 1901 which is unique in Washington D.C.
(Criteria C; Areas of Significance: Community Planning and Development and
Architecture)
The Cleveland Park Historic District also embodies distinctive
characteristics of community planning and development in the District of
Columbia with its commercial "main street" which was created in 1920 with the
adoption of one of the earliest zoning ordinances in the U.S. The D.C.
ordinance included an unusual provision establishing four clearly designated
commercial precincts along Connecticut Avenue north of Rock Creek Park
reflecting the most advanced and innovative thinking about positive
neighborhood development and the necessity for creating a compatible integral
relationship between residential neighborhoods and commercial areas serving
the neighborhoods. The unusual aspect was the restriction of commercial
activity to four relatively small (3 blocks) areas rather than designating the
whole of Connecticut Avenue commercial which would have encouraged strip
commercial development. Connecticut Avenue was the only street in the