MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE
Sheridan Circle to Scott Circle
17th to 18th Streets NW

Sanborn, 1904	Today

18th to 17th St, North Block	18th to 17th St, South Block

The 1700 Block of Massachusetts Avenue is known as "Millionaires’ Row" for the number of Washington’s political, social and intellectual elite who built residences on the block. One of the Row’s showpieces is the National Trust for Historic Preservati on, which stands at 1785 Massachusetts Avenue. The site was previously occupied by the Beldon Noble House, which was demolished in 1917 by Stanley McCormick to make room for a new apartment building. The large apartment house was designed by preemin ent Washington architect Jules Henri de Sibour in the Beaux Arts style and features oval reception foyers and a six bedroom per apartment unit. The apartments’ famous tenants includes Andrew W. Mellon, the Pittsburgh banking and oil tycoon. After Worl d War II, the building was turned over to a number of owners, including the British government, the American Council on Education, and the Brookings Institution, before being sold to the National Trust in 1977. The year 1998 heralded the construction of a new building at 1779 Massachusetts Avenue to house the headquarters of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and several non-profit foreign policy organizations.

The architectural firm of KCF designed the light limestone structure both to connect with the new Ambassador House apartment building located on adjoining P Street NW and to align with the cornice lines of the National Trust building to the north. The la nd on which the new building sits was originally cleared forty years ago during the construction of the Brookings Institution, who intended to build an office building on the site. Various zoning changes, real estate recessions, and neighborhood oppositi on precluded the completion of the original plans and the Brookings Institution sold the land in 1995 for development of the revised building project. Robert Brookings founded the nearby Brookings Institution at 1775 Massachusetts Avenue with the mission of researching government policy. The institution is housed in an office-like building designed in 1960 by the firm Faulkner, Kingsbury, and Stenhouse.

Brookings Institute, 1970

Moore House, 1915

The Peter Force Public School sits amidst the elegant residences and was attended by the children of such notable residents as Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Next to the School is 1746 Massachusetts Avenue, which was the fo rmer Clarence Moore House and stands now as the Canadian Embassy Chancery). Jules Henri de Sibour, the preeminent Washington architect, designed the residence in 1906 in the Beaux Arts style. Mrs. Clarence Moore lived in the six-story mans ion until 1927, when she sold it for use as the new Canadian Legation.

The Chilean Embassy Chancery, which stands at 1732 Massachusetts Avenue, is an austere 1890 mansion built by the influential Washington architect Glenn Brown. The house was used as a private residence until 1941, when it was sold to the Washington Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Senator Henry A duPont of Delaware resided at 1711 Massachusetts Avenue; while William Gibbs McAdoo, the secretary of the treasury under President Wilson, occupied 1709 Massachusetts Avenue. Across t he street, 1708 Massachusetts Avenue was the former residence of Thomas Nelson Page and is used today as the Embassy of Trinidad and Tobago.

The Mrs. Beriah Wilkins Residence at 1700 Massachusetts Avenue is a grand white limestone residence that marks the end of "Millionnaires’ Row". It was built in 1909 by Jules Henri de Sibour for the widow of Beriah Wilkins, the publisher of the Was hington Post. The residence, which replaced a grocery store that had occupied the site until 1899, stands today as the Chancery of the Peruvian Embassy.

Wilkins Residence, 1915