National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

NFS Form 10-900-a OMB Approval No. 10244018
(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 30
he was designing the house to meet definite needs for internal spaces which
the exterior reflects rather than determines, as well as to provide for
privacy, and to fit into the streetscape rather than to confront or challenge
it. He turned the houses sideways so that their smallest facades were to the
street which allowed for more window space along the garden facades. His
design included a molding of the lot in such a way that earth is banked
against the street so that the house sits in a carved out area with a hill
toward the street providing privacy for the yard and a barrier against street
noises. In 1982, with a shrinking rather than an expanding family, he
designed a new house for his family at 3403 36th Street and two accompanying
houses (3407, 3511) which together form an enclave with a shared garden and
swimming pool. These are starkly simple houses, very boxy in shape and all
have identical exteriors but custom designed interiors which satisfy the needs
and desires of the individual families. Winthrop Faulkner won an award from
the metropolitan chapter of the AIA for his design for these three houses.
William Lescaze, an architect of Swiss birth and training who emigrated
to the United States in the 1920's, has been recognized as introducing the
International Style to the U.S. in his collaborative work with George Howe on
the PSFS (the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society) Building of 1929-30. He
introduced the International Style to architecturally conservative Washington
D.C. ten years later in his Longfellow Office Building of 1940 (at the corner
of Rhode Island and Connecticut Avenues). At this same time he designed an
International Style residence tucked into a curve and a hill on Rowland Place
in Cleveland Park. Once again Cleveland Park was the place where an
innovative, and shockingly new design, could easily be assimilated and
appreciated.
In 1962 I.M. Pei designed a residence in Cleveland Park on Ordway Street.
Tucked behind a brick wall and set low on its sloping lot it blends in with
the streetscape and is only visible if you look for it. I.M. Pei remarked
when he first saw the site: "This neighborhood interests me. I don't feel
the heavy hand of conformity." *(T.W. Tirana, "Cleveland Park Contemporary,
Washington Star, Sunday Magazine, Jan. 20, 1963). leoh Ming Pei was born in
1917 in Canton, China. He studied in Shanghai before coming to the U.S. He
went to MIT in 1938 and then to the Harvard School of Design where he studied
with Walter Gropius. From 1948 until 1960 Pei worked for entrepreneurial
speculator and real estate developer William Zeckendorf as the architect in
charge of his contracting firm Webb and Knapp Inc. In 1960 Pei founded his
own architectural firm shortly before designing this house in Cleveland Park.
In Washington Pei is recognized for his design of the East Wing of the
National Gallery of Art (1979) and the Third Church of Christ Scientist and
the Christian Science Monitor Building (1973). In addition he has designed
distinguished buildings across the country from the Mile High Center in Denver
(1959) to the Government Center (1963) and the John Hancock building (1973) in
Boston.
In 1982 local architect Reid A. (Sam) Dunn designed a home for himself on
Newark Street which startled the neighborhood and stirred up architectural
debate. According to the architect, he wanted to recapture the romantic