Dougal House
Built in 1854, this home reflects the design principles of Andrew Jackson Downing.
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Andrew Jackson Downing, designer of a romantic vision of the National Mall (not implemented) and among the most romantic figures of 19th-century American design, wrote in 1850 of the need for truth in domestic architecture, that a country home reflect its function, its location, its owner. Built four years later, on the edge of civilized Georgetown Heights, the Dougal House exquisitely expressed Downing's precepts. And as Georgetown changed and tastes in architecture changed, so did the Dougal House. While its architecture says much about mid-to-late-19th-century architecture in Georgetown and the United States, the Dougal House, through its non-architectural artifacts, suggests much about the changes in who owned property in Georgetown in that period.
DC Inventory: November 8, 1964
Within Georgetown Historic District
