The Fulford
This apartment illustrates middle-class emulation of the acceptance of apartments by the rich, filling a continuum of the apartment building type from the tenements inhabited by the poor.
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The Fulford was constructed in 1911 and named upon its completion. Its architect was Carroll Beale (1882-1942), a self-employed civil engineer, residential builder and innovator in concrete construction. The four-story brick building has an Italian Renaissance façade, a popular revival style for such buildings during that period, but likely here adopted in emulation of the first mansions and embassies erected in Meridian Hill during the previous three years.
Mary Foote Henderson’s vision of an elite “Avenue of the Presidents” and embassy row along nearby Sixteenth Street in Meridian Hill had petered out before her death, despite her successful development of several mansions and their inspiration of several more. Notwithstanding her husband’s investment in the construction of the Kenesaw, apartments did not fit Mrs. Henderson’s vision of development along Sixteenth Street, namely the promotion of a certain scale, the attraction of a certain quality of buildings and residents, and, most important, the protection of views. Yet, while she was still active, apartment buildings sprang up on the margins of her extensive landholdings, taking advantage of the exclusivity of the neighborhood, and would soon fill in among the mansions. Many of these apartments were luxury residences, as the convenience of apartment living increasingly appealed to the affluent.
Farther still on the outskirts of the neighborhood, the Fulford is not a luxury apartment building, but it illustrates middle-class emulation of the acceptance of apartments by the rich, filling a continuum of the apartment building type from the tenements inhabited by the poor. The Fulford’s early tenants were government clerks, professionals, teachers, policemen, construction workers, and service workers. Similar development in this area was spurred by the extension of streetcar lines up Fourteenth Street and Connecticut Avenue at the end of the nineteenth century, resulting in a cluster of apartments between Ontario Road and Fourteenth Street, north of Florida Avenue and south of the Piney Branch stream.
DC Inventory: December 21, 2017
National Register: March 6, 2018
