MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE
Sheridan Circle to Scott Circle
20th to 21st Streets NW

Sanborn, 1904	Today	Cross Section, Florida Ave to 20th St

21st to 20th St, North Block	21st to 20th St, South Block

The Indonesian Embassy/Thomas Walsh Residence at 2020 Massachusetts Avenue was originally designed in 1902 by Henry Anderson for Thomas Walsh, a Colorado gold miner. The house, which featured sixty rooms and a slab of gold ore in the front porch, was the most expensive house in Washington. The undulating façade and ornate three-story Art Nouveau stairway further exhibit the grandeur of the mansion and Thomas Walsh’s extensive fortune. After the Walsh family abandoned the mansion in 1932, the str ucture housed the Red Cross until the Indonesian government purchased it in 1951. In 1982, Walter Gropius’s firm The Architect’s Collaborative designed a modernist addition. The Beale House, which was built in 1898 for Joseph Beale, stands at 201 2 Massachusetts Avenue. The structure features a somber monochromatic façade that is in great contrast to the eclectic style of the nearby Indonesian Embassy, and is used today by the National federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs.

Indonesian Embassy, 1945