Category Naval Observatory
The Myths of the British Embassy II: the Location with Lutyens
The previous entry in this website surveyed the District’s Gilded Age landscape with its Beaux-Arts architecture existing on Massachusetts Avenue before the British Chancery and Ambassador’s Residence arrived in the neighborhood. This was to address misinformation about and the perplexing view that the architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens, designed the United Kingdom complex in rural land […]
The Myths of the British Embassy I: the Location before Lutyens
There persists the unfortunate belief in some publications that in the 1920s the government of the United Kingdom chose a remote site with “little civilization nearby” for their new Washington Embassy. While the British with their previous diplomatic building pioneered the countryside around Connecticut Avenue—with livestock pens and crumbling Civil War barracks for neighbors—that is […]
Plan of the Embassy Gardens and Maps of the Area
For reference to earlier and future posts, here is a master plan of the entire grounds of the Ambassador’s Residence: And for the points of interest in the story of the landscape of the British Embassy, including Normanstone Park and Normanstone Drive, Oak Hill Cemetery, Dumbarton Oaks, the Naval Observatory, Rock Creek Park: At the […]
The Embassy Gardens and Dumbarton Oaks
With the ridge of Clifton Hill between them, the British Embassy and Dumbarton Oaks have a shared legacy and stories, the memory of which has nearly been lost over the years. The original 19th-century estates of both sites were once part of the same Royal land grant, the Rock of Dumbarton. Before each gained renown, […]
Lutyens in Washington
Nine perspective drawings by long-time Lutyens’s collaborator Cyril A. Farey for the proposed new British Embassy were exhibited on 5 February 1927 to the United States Commission of Fine Arts. Meeting in the New York office of architect William Delano, the established American professionals comprising or acting as consultants to this committee (Cass Gilbert, Charles […]
The Development of “Massachusetts Avenue Extended”
Robert Barnard’s original property, the site of the British Embassy, remained intact for almost eighty years; its breakup began with rapidly rising land values and the expansion of the United States Government’s domain in the post-Civil War era. The story is simply told in a series of maps, surveys and real estate plat books. The […]
Landscape of a Washington Place 
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