Cooke's Row

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In 1871, over concerns of federal mismanagement, President Grant and Congress reorganized the government of the District of Columbia under a new Territorial Governorship. President Grant selected Henry D. Cooke as the first Governor of the District of Columbia. Years earlier, Cooke came to Washington to work alongside his brother, banker Jay Cooke. The two grew their bank to be one of the most important of the period in large part due to their financing of the Union effort in the American Civil War. Henry Cooke, who had aligned himself with the Republican political elite, such as Alexander Robey Shepherd (known as “Boss Shepherd”), put himself in a place to be given the powerful role of Governor after some of the dust of the war had settled.  

Three years before he began his role as Governor, Cooke had a row of four semi-detached duplex villas built at 3007-3029 Q Street NW in Georgetown. These homes, around the corner from where Cooke himself lived in the Francis Dodge House at 1537 30th Street NW, were built by Cooke with the intention of being homes for his children, though no record of them ever living there exists. In the row of four structures, the two on the ends are in the French Second Empire style, and the two between them are in an Italianate Villa style. These two styles were common at the time as the picturesque “country house” was in vogue among wealthy home buyers. Cooke employed Starkweather & Plowman to design and build the eight villas in 1868.

Over the decades, since the villas’ erection, many of DC’s wealthy elite have called them home, including Cooke, Shepherd, and some of their descendants. More recently in the 1970s, famed author and Watergate investigator, Bob Woodward resided on Cooke’s Row, continuing the legacy of importance and prestige.

DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)
Within Georgetown Historic District