Anderson House History

Anderson House was built between 1902 and 1905 in the heart of Dupont Circle, which was at that time, our capital's most fashionable neighborhood. At a cost of nearly $750,000, the Boston firm, Arthur Little & Herbert Browne, designed this Beaux Arts mansion to be the winter home of Larz Anderson III (1866-1937), an American diplomat, and his wife, Isabel (1876-1948), an author and Red Cross volunteer. The fifty-room mansion is Little & Browne's finest architectural achievement. The original property also included a walled garden, tennis courts, and a three-story stable and carriage house. The eclectic interiors of Anderson House dominated by English and Italian influences feature the painstaking work

The ballroom offers an inlaid oak floor, Verona marble columns, and a flying staircase with an intricate wrought iron balustrade. Photograph by Gordon Beall.

of craftsman who adorned the house with carved wood walls, gilded papier-mache ceilings, ornate iron staircases, and intricate marble floors. The house was also embellished with all the latest conveniences, including electricity, central heat, telephones, two elevators, and clothes dryers with pull-out racks.

Larz and Isabel Anderson in the Anderson House garden, 1905. Photograph by Henry F. Withey, a draftsman employed by Little & Browne

Larz Anderson III who was born into one of the most prominent families of Cincinnati, Ohio began his diplomatic career in the 1890s as second secretary of the American legation in London and first secretary and charge d'affaires of the American legation in Rome, and finished it with appointments in the early 1910s as minister to Belgium and ambassador to Japan. He also devoted his time to charitable and intellectual pursuits as a member of the National Belgium Relief Commission, the National Society of the Fine Arts, the Society of the Cincinnati, and the Aero Club of Washington, D.C. (to foster interest in the principles and development of aeronautics). Isabel Anderson, born Isabel Perkins in Boston to one of Massachusetts's first families, was even wealthier than her husband, having inherited $17 million on her twenty-first birthday from her

grandfather, shipping magnate William Fletcher Weld. In addition to her work as a Red Cross volunteer in front-line hospitals in France and Belgium during World War I, and as an author of children's books and travelogues, Isabel devoted herself to giving to churches, hospitals, and World War I relief funds. The Andersons also owned estates in Brookline, Massachusetts and Contoocook, New Hampshire.

The Andersons built their winter residence in Washington, D.C., so that the rising diplomat could entertain American and foreign dignitaries and the capital city's high society in a grand setting. For thirty-two years, Larz and Isabel Anderson were among the most popular hosts in the capital. During the Washington social season, generally between New Year's Day and Easter, the Andersons hosted diplomatic and inaugural receptions, formal dinners and luncheons, concerts, and performances of Isabel's plays. The Andersons' guest lists included Presidents William H. Taft

The Andersons hosted elegant dinners for as many as thirty guests in their formal dining room on the second floor. Photograph by Gordon Beall.

and Calvin Coolidge, General John J. Pershing, Henry A. du Pont, and members of the Vanderbilt family. Anderson House also served a public role as the occasional residence of foreign dignitaries on official visits to the United States, including the visits of King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth of Belgium in 1919 and King Pradjadhipok and Queen Rambai Barni of Siam (now Thailand) in 1931.

To furnish their domicile and provide an elegance befitting prominent guests, the Andersons assembled a world-class collection of paintings, sculptures, furniture, ceramics, books, and various other artifacts reflecting the their personal interests and tastes, as well as the trends of that era. English paintings, French furniture, Flemish tapestries, Asian decorative arts, and antiquities fill the mansion. The couple also hired renowned mural painters H. Siddons Mowbray and Karl Yens to add personal touches to their grand home -- sweeping scenes of American history, intimate garden views, and whimsical maps of favorite driving routes around Washington, D.C. The Andersons also collected automobiles and horse-drawn carriages, which they used to travel around the region.

To Larz and Isabel Anderson, their Washington home represented the culmination of what America's founders, and many of the original members of the Society of the Cincinnati, hoped their capital city would become; a grand, modern metropolitan center, rivaling European capitals, but with a patriotic identity and a sense of history that would make it distinctively American. When Larz died in 1937 with no children, his widow oversaw the gift of Anderson House and much of its original furnishings to the Society of the Cincinnati, of which Larz had been a devoted member.

Anderson House has been the headquarters of the Society of the Cincinnati since 1938. The Society converted former servants' quarters and working spaces into offices and introduced other changes to the mansion. Portraits of the Society's presidents general from George Washington to the present decorate the east stair hall.

The gardens have been renovated and a reflecting pool added. The gardens are now named in honor of Harry Hoyt, the president general whose energy, determination and support made the renovation work possible. The Andersons' billiard room has been converted into a temporary exhibition gallery. Most dramatic of all, the Anderson's basement has been transformed into a modern, state-of-the-art research library where scholars can study the era of the American Revolution. The construction of the modern research library was part of a general restoration of the house completed in 1998. Anderson House has been designated a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.