Brooks Mansion is a Greek Revival-style plantation house built by wealthy landowners Ann and Jehiel Brooks around 1840. A large eastern addition to this house was built by the Marist Society, which altered Brooks Mansion for use in 1894. This made Brooks Mansion the Society of Mary’s first permanent administrative center and house of studies before the Marists formally constructed Marist College near the Catholic University of America grounds. Since its construction, the house has been a significant landmark in the Brookland neighborhood.

The grounds of Brooks Mansion uniquely reflect the history of Brookland's development, from Colonial days to the present.

It has changed ownership many times over the course of its history, and its tenants have included the Benedictine Sisters of Elizabeth, New Jersey; Catholic University; St. Anthony's High School; the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA); and the Public Access Corporation for the District of Columbia (DCTV).

DC Inventory: April 29, 1975

National Register: July 17, 1975

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The Scheele-Brown Farmhouse, named for the first two families that occupied the building and the only residents who farmed the surrounding land while living there, was constructed in the latter half of 1865. As there are no farms remaining in DC and only a handful of agricultural outbuildings left, the Scheele-Brown Farmhouse represents its own vanished small farm, and by extension, the others that have been lost.

It also represents Washington’s early meat industry, particularly the business of butchering, in which most of the farmers immediately north and west of Georgetown, including the Scheeles and the Browns, were engaged from the mid-nineteenth to the early-twenieth centuries. Such farms were the entry points for cattle purchased at and driven from the larger farms of Maryland and Virginia. They were processing centers to get meat, beef and mutton especially, from the hoof to the market, performing a crucial service to a rapidly increasing urban population after the Civil War. In addition to generating greater self sufficiency and additional family income from raising diversified products, butchers’ farms provided fodder and water for their cattle, space for stock pens and slaughterhouses, and a buffer between these slaughterhouses and neighbors.

The last District farms vanished in the 1950s, but large estate houses have been better preserved than have the modest ones that might be said to have been more common or characteristic. A simple side-gable vernacular house with traces of Greek Revival influence, the Scheele-Brown house represents the modest farmhouses that typified the rural areas surrounding Washington prior to the proliferation of suburban subdivisions after the 1870s. In addition to providing a dwelling for each owner of the farm, the building almost certainly served as a home to tenants and servants.

The farmhouse operated from 1865, when it was built, until 1915, when Walter M. Brown, the last farmer-butcher occupant of the property, moved away, and it lost its connection to the surrounding Brown farm and to the meat industry. Shortly thereafter, the parcel was sold and became indistinguishable in use from later suburban residences, although it remained a four-acre lot until subdivided for additional house lots in 1961.

DC Inventory: September 12, 2013

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Built between 1813 and 1816, the Barber-Caperton House is located within the Georgetown Historic District. The house is probably best known for its Greek Revival style gazebo, constructed around 1830 and located in the house's rear garden. The house has a large front and side yard with a wrought iron fence along N Street and the driveway. The front entrance, reached via a staircase with iron railings, is the most elaborate feature of the house’s simple facade. It includes a double panel door below an elliptical fanlight and is flanked by pilasters.

DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)

Within Georgetown Historic District

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The District of Columbia Court of Appeals (now United States Court of Military Appeals) is an example of Greek Revival architecture, designed by Elliott Woods, Architect of the Capitol from 1902 to 1923. He designed the Court of Appeals with great sensitivity to respect the adjacent former Washington City Hall of 1820, which now serves as the District of Columbia Courthouse.

The Court of Appeals building is exceptionally well executed. The materials are fine without being lavish, and the refined restraint displayed throughout the structure exemplifies the best architectural thought of the conservative school during the first decade of this century.

DC Inventory: March 3, 1979

National Register: January 21, 1974

Within Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site

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The Van Ness Mausoleum, designed by George Hadfield circa 1833, stands on one of the terraced hills of Georgetown's Oak Hill Cemetery. The family mausoleum was constructed for John Peter Van Ness, his wife Marcia Burnes Van Ness, their daughter, and their granddaughter.

Both the Van Ness family and George Hadfield were significant to the early history and development of Washington. John Van Ness was active in local politics and finance, and Marcia Van Ness devoted much of her life to working for charitable institutions. Hadfield was one of the first professional architects to practice in this country. His interpretation of classical prototypes for his design of the Van Ness Mausoleum resulted in one of the finest examples of Greek Revival architecture in DC.

Hadfield's design for this circular classical temple incorporates the Greek Doric order and Roman elements and was inspired by the Romantic Classical Revival movement that dominated American architecture during the first half of the nineteenth century. The mausoleum originally stood on the south side of H Street NW, between 9th and 10th streets. It was moved to its present site in Oak Hill Cemetery in late 1872 or early 1873.

DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)

National Register: December 17, 1982

Within Georgetown Historic District

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Built between 1836 and 1869, the Treasury Department building is the work of five major American architects—Robert Mills, Thomas U. Walter, Ammi B. Young, Isaiah Rogers, and Alfred B. Mullett. Conceived and built in the Greek Revival style that captured the spirit of the young republic, this building and the Patent Office, undertaken at the same time, are the most outstanding examples of Greek Revival civil architecture in the country. Not only were they the largest non-military buildings undertaken by the federal government in their own time, but they also influenced countless examples of civil architecture across the nation.

From 1800, the Treasury Department was housed in the first of George Hadfield’s three brick Executive Offices, built between 1798 and 1799 on the site of the present north wing. The Treasury Office caught fire in 1801, 1814, and 1833, and it was not reconstructed after the third conflagration. Robert Mills, who had been in the capital since 1830, was asked to assess the fire, and by 1836, his plans for a new Treasury building were accepted by Andrew Jackson. Undoubtedly, a major reason for Mills’s selection was his interest in fireproof construction, demonstrated by his Fireproof Building (1822-27) in Charleston, South Carolina. Mills had also studied with both Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Latrobe.

Mills’s design for the Treasury called for an E-shaped building opening west toward the White House, with a long classical facade on 15th Street, but only the east front and center wing were built under his supervision, from 1836 to 1842. The unusual vaulted structural system of the building and its monumental scale aroused suspicion in Congress, as well as some sharp professional jealousies among rival architects. In 1838, a bill was introduced in Congress to authorize the demolition of the half-completed structure. The architect presenting the case for demolition was Thomas U. Walter, Philadelphia’s leading Greek Revival practitioner. Walter was appointed Architect of the Capitol in 1851, and he was authorized to prepare plans for extending the Treasury in 1855. His concept, which was carried through as others executed the work, established the ultimate rectangular layout, double courtyards, and portico facades.

The south wing was built from 1855 to 1861 under the supervision of Ammi B. Young, appointed Supervising Architect of the Treasury in 1852. While Mills had been forced to use Aquia Creek sandstone, the extension was carried out in granite. The columns were monoliths, whereas Mills’ had been built up in drums. Young was abruptly dismissed by Secretary Salmon P. Chase in 1862 and replaced by Isaiah Rogers, who remained in the job until 1865, supervising completion of the west wing (1855-64), addition of an attic floor on all the wings (1863-65), and preliminary planning for the north wing. Upon his resignation, Rogers was succeeded by his former subordinate Alfred B. Mullett, who completed the north wing between 1867 and 1869. This wing contains the elaborately decorated marble Banking Room, which was the setting for Ulysses Grant’s first inaugural ball in 1869.

The Mills interiors are minimally decorated, their architectural character resulting from the masonry barrel-vaulted corridors, flanked by groin-vaulted offices. The elegantly curved, cantilevered marble staircases are a signature of his work. In contrast, the interiors of the three later wings rely much more on interior decoration for their architectural character. Their structural system, influenced by the emergent cast iron technology, is one of shallow brick vaults supported on cast iron beams, producing rectilinear volumes and a much less sculptural appearance. In these wings, Young, Rogers, and Mullett made extensive and imaginative use cast iron of and cast plaster decoration, including cast iron pilasters and friezes in the main corridors. Mullett’s Cash Room is the most lavish space in the building, displaying seven varieties of marble in the paneled walls, and richly sculptural bronze railings for the balcony.

By the late 1890s, the need for additional office space led to the insertion of a large truss-roofed drafting room in the south courtyard, for use by the Supervising Architect of the Treasury. The poor quality of the building’s original Aquia Creek sandstone led to the rebuilding of Mills’ colonnade. Architects York and Sawyer added an attic story to the building between 1909 and 1910 and made other alterations through 1923. The north entrance statue of Alexander Hamilton, by James Earle Fraser on a base by Henry Bacon, was also installed in 1923.

DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)

National Register: November 11, 1971

National Historic Landmark: November 11, 1971

Within Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site, Financial Historic District, and Lafayette Square Historic District

This site is included in the Women's Suffrage in Washington DC tour for its role as a staging area for allegorical performances at the end of the 1913 Women's Suffrage Parade.

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The Mary Elizabeth Surratt Boarding House is an 1843 vernacular Greek Revival style dwelling that Mary Surratt operated as a boarding house from September 1864 through April 1865. During this period, John Wilkes Booth visited the boarding house both socially and to meet with other members of the conspiracy while planning President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the federal government, encouraging a debate regarding her guilt that has continued to this day. After her execution for her participation in the assassination conspiracy, subsequent owners continued to maintain the property as a boarding house. In 1925, then-owner Irvan Schwarztman converted the first floor of the dwelling into a commercial space and added show windows at the street level. In 1931, Yow Chin Teas moved into the building and subsequent tenants have included High Wah & Co. Importers, Sie Que Co. Imports, and the Suey Sang Lung Co. grocery. Today, the building is part of the Chinese restaurant chain, Wok & Roll.

DC Inventory: July 24, 1968 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)

National Register: August 11, 2009

Within Downtown Historic District

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Due to its close proximity to the White House, Saint John’s Church is known as the “Church of the Presidents”; accordingly, every President since James Madison has attended at least one service here. A prayer book in one of the pews contains the signatures of every president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but excluding Richard Nixon, commemorating the inauguration services they attended at Saint John’s.

Architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820) designed Saint John’s Church, in addition to other noted buildings in the neighborhood. The church was completed in 1816 and serves as a notable example of late Federal architecture, with Greek Revival elements. Many additions and alterations have been made to the church over the last two centuries, but it remains in fine condition today. The church still serves as an active parish.

DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)

National Register: October 15, 1966

National Historic Landmark: December 19, 1960

Within Lafayette Square Historic District and Sixteenth Street Historic District

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The Steedman-Ray House, built in 1849, was in keeping with the earlier substantial, freestanding brick homes of the neighborhood. Like these predecessors, it was built for a man of stature, a high-ranking Navy captain named Charles Steedman. During the Civil War years, the structure was used as the Office of the Commissary-General of Prisoners, becoming part of the Union Army headquarters housed in the buildings and houses surrounding the White House.

Following the Civil War, it was occupied by a series of socially and politically prominent people. In keeping with its social stature, the building was converted into an elite, private club in 1933. During the late 1960s, George Washington University acquired the property, and it has been a part of their campus since that time, serving as the residence for the university's president.

DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)

National Register: September 21, 1990

Within George Washington University/Old West End Historic District

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While it’s currently the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Old Patent Office reflects an era when scientific invention propelled the American economy and began to mold the national character. Although more than a half million patents were issued here, the building was designed not just to house patent examiners, but also to display the models required for patent applications. Throughout the nineteenth century, the Patent Office was an important public attraction, exhibiting the Declaration of Independence, art collections of the National Institute, and other historical artifacts as well. During the Civil War, the building served as a temporary barracks and hospital; Walt Whitman’s nursing here gave inspiration to his poetry. It was also the site of Lincoln’s second inaugural ball. A century later, the building’s rescue contributed significantly to the development of the historic preservation movement and the assumption of federal responsibility for stewardship of historic landmarks. The General Services Administration contemplated demolition of the building for a parking garage in the late 1950s, but President Eisenhower intervened, and in 1962, Congress turned the building over to the Smithsonian for museum use. It was renovated in between 1964 and 1967 and reopened to the public in 1968. Although most of the interior has been altered for use as a museum, parts of the Old Patent Office interior are still visible on the building’s third floor in the National Portrait Gallery’s Great Hall. DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)