The Rosedale farmhouse, perched high on a hill in Cleveland Park with inspiring views of the Washington National Cathedral, is believed to be one of the oldest homes in the District of Columbia. In a triumph of tenacious determination and extraordinary community involvement, this historic home has been lovingly restored and three acres of open space on the south lawn have been preserved in perpetuity as a nature conservancy.
Reaching this point took guts and gumption. In fact, it took a huge neighborhood effort following a dispute over the property and the area around it to make this happen. And the neighbors, who had grown accustomed over the years to using the terraced south lawn of the farmhouse, are particularly pleased that this treasure, now known as The Rosedale Conservancy, will always be available to the public.
The Rosedale farmhouse was restored with great respect and a light touch by Stephen Muse of Muse Architects. “With important historic buildings, you go in and save everything that you possibly can. You always repair rather than replace,” says Muse, who made the renovation look seamless, even though the house was in sad shape before he started. “It was an old wreck of a house with three ugly buildings surrounding it,” recalls Eleni Constantine, a Harvard-educated lawyer who works for the House Financial Services Committee. She and her husband, Jonathan Abram, a litigator with Hogan & Hartson, now reside in the landmark farmhouse with their teenage daughters, Cleo and Zoe.
A Fascinating History
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The story of the Rosedale farmhouse begins with a simple two-room stone cottage built on 240 acres north of Georgetown in 1740. More than 50 years later, General Uriah Forrest, a Revolutionary War hero, bought the property and built a two-story, six-bedroom clapboard house very close to the original stone structure. “Between 1793 and around 1810, they enclosed the 11’ gap between the wooden part [of the farmhouse] and the stone part,” Constantine says.
The Forrest family continued to own Rosedale for generations, until World War I. By that time, much of the land surrounding it had been sold. Subsequent owners added hot water, electricity, and central heating. In 1959, National Cathedral purchased the approximately six-acre property and built three brick dormitories clustered close to the farmhouse for the National Cathedral School (NCS). Students lived there for the next two decades and the original farmhouse was used for administrative purposes. Meanwhile Cleveland Park residents had grown used to using Rosedale’s historic front lawn as a park with the approval of the NCS.
When NCS stopped accepting boarding students, it sold the property to Youth for Understanding (YFU), a non-profit student exchange organization that used Rosedale as an office building. “There were six washing machines and dryers in the hall so they could do the institutional laundry,” Constantine remembers. A critical covenant that was part of the NCS/YFU transaction gave neighbors continued access to the open space on the south lawn plus it gave the owners of 18 adjacent neighboring properties the right to match any bid for Rosedale within 90 days if YFU should ever sell the property, Constantine says.
That became critical in 2001, when YFU, by then in bankruptcy, sought a buyer for the property. Neighbors quickly moved into action, forming themselves into “Friends of Rosedale” and working with potential bidders to find a buyer who would preserve the historic house and keep the green space open to the public. A potential purchase by Special Olympics ultimately did not close, and YFU put the property up for bid. The Abram-Constantines and two other neighbors put up personal funds to bid on the farmhouse and adjoining property. This bid, which would have eliminated the old dorm buildings, added only one new house, and assured the green space would remain public forever, enjoyed widespread neighborhood support. But an independent school prevailed with a bid for $12 million, outbidding the neighborhood by a staggering $4 million, Abram says.
Final Hour Rescue
Neighbors thought they had been beaten – they had the 20-year-old right to match, but no one had any hope that they could match a $12 million bid. Early in the 90-day period, about 40 Cleveland Park neighbors gathered in the living room of Roger Pollak, an attorney with Bredhoff & Kaiser and a neighbor who spearheaded the project with Abram. “We passed the hat and people put in what they personally would be willing to donate,” Pollak says. “We collected $1.6 million of anonymous commitments.”
Invigorated, the Cleveland Park neighbors pushed on, with a core group of about 25 working tirelessly during the summer of 2002 to figure out a way to finance their plan. They contacted conservancies and others, and eventually contacted Jim Gibson of Gibson Builders LLC – on the 63rd day of the 90-day window – to ask for help in developing a plan to replace the aging three-story dorm buildings with houses and in that way help raise the extra funds needed. “Jim Gibson was an absolute godsend. He, Bob Holman, and neighbor Sam Dunn organized the purchase of the back area of the property where the dorm buildings stood, finding buyers to buy ‘lots’ that didn’t even yet exist,” Abram says. With Gibson and Dunn as developers for the bulk of the property and The Conservation Fund, a national environmental nonprofit, as a partner helping to protect the front green space portion, and with gifts from more than 100 families, the neighborhood group remarkably raised the required $12 million needed to match the bid for the six-acre property.
The neighborhood proposal was to have three acres of land designated as a park, to have the Rosedale farmhouse and the Rosedale guest cottage both purchased and restored, and the run-down dorms demolished and replaced with residences. Five of the new houses were to be built by Gibson Builders LLC, one designed and built by Dunn Brady Associates Architects, and two empty lots sold that could be developed at a later date. “The complex deal involved one lot, one seller, and 10 buyers,” Abram says. Even though the group had matched the bid, which had seemed almost impossible, everything hinged on whether a bankruptcy judge thought the school or the proposed subdivision should be built. Abram remembers the climactic hearing. “It was like something out of a Perry Mason episode,” he says, recalling all the neighbors gathered at the courthouse and their joy after the judge ruled in their favor.
Restoring the Residence
Ultimately, the complicated deal succeeded. The cherished three-acre historic front lawns of Rosedale are now a public park, owned by a neighborhood land trust. Abram and Constantine bought the Rosedale farmhouse. And Gibson built five new houses, four along Ordway Street, and one interior home next to the farmhouse. Gibson, Dunn, and Holman developed these homes. The following firms – Dale Owen Overmyer Architect; Michael Marshall Architecture; Richard Williams Architects; SMB Architects, and Dunn Brady Associates Architects designed the houses, which complement the lovely aesthetic of Cleveland Park. The small Rosedale guest cottage was purchased and restored, too. And the three dorms were demolished with the blessing of the Historical Preservation Review Board.
Restoring the old farmhouse to a family residence was challenging. “There were really no modern bathrooms, not even a kitchen. This hadn’t been used as a house in 50 years,” Constantine says. “The biggest challenge was trying to make the house very livable while keeping it as true as possible to its origins.”
The oldest part of the house, the small stone cottage, looks much today as it may have looked 267 years ago when it was originally built. “This is where George Washington slept when he came to visit Uriah Forrest and his wife [Rebecca],” Constantine says, entering a small room with a large brick hearth that still has the original crane in the fireplace. “Uriah Forrest was Washington’s aide-de-camp during the Revolutionary War,” she says, adding that he went on to become a member of Congress and the mayor of Georgetown. The stone room behind this one has old wooden beams across the ceiling with nicks and notches that suggest they were hewn with an ax.
The Abram-Constantine family kept and restored all 10 remaining fireplaces in the farmhouse. Another of the original 12 fireplaces was hidden behind a recent frame wall in what is now the kitchen, near the area that connects the original stone cottage and the clapboard farmhouse. The family preserved what they could of the wall of the fireplace, which is now behind the stove. “It captures the history of the house, it’s written on the wall,” Constantine says, looking at bricks of various ages.
The kitchen, formerly a reception area, also includes a breakfast nook plus an odd old back staircase with timeworn stairs. “None of the risers and treads are the same size,” Constantine says, adding, “its irregularity is part of its charm.” The unique way neighbors cobbled together the plan to save The Rosedale Conservancy and the farmhouse is also part of its charm.
“I’m thrilled with how everything came out. It was an amazing community effort that was incredibly improbable,” Pollak says. “I really wonder how many things like this have happened in an urban environment in the US?”
