Tudor Place

Tudor Place
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
File:Tudor Place 2011.jpg
South façade.
Location	1644 31st Street, NW Washington, D.C.
Coordinates
Area	5.5 acres
Built	1815
Architect	Dr. William Thornton
Architectural style	Federal
NRHP Reference #	66000871
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966
Designated NHL	December 19, 1960

Tudor Place is a Federal-style mansion in Washington, D.C. that was originally the home of Thomas Peter and his wife, Martha Parke Custis Peter, a granddaughter of Martha Washington. Step-grandfather George Washington left her the $8,000 in his will that was used to purchase the property in 1805. The property, comprising one city block on the crest of Georgetown Heights, had an excellent view of the Potomac River.

History

From George Washington's 1799 will, Martha Parke Custis Peter, received $8,000 (equivalent to $132,000 in present-day terms). From Martha Washington's will, Martha Parke Custis Peter inherited 90 enslaved people. Her husband, Thomas Peter, may have used her $8,000 inheritance as well as money gained from selling many of the enslaved people Martha inherited in order to purchase the property that would become Tudor Place in 1805. They contracted with Dr. William Thornton, who also designed the United States Capitol as well as The Octagon House, to design Tudor Place. The decorations included four chair-cushions embroidered by Martha Washington in 1801 and described as "executed upon coarse canvas in a design of shells, done in brown and yellow wools, the highlights being flecked in gold-colored silk" and included a decorative cover for a bed whose trimmings also were embroidered by Martha Washington.

A previous owner of the property had begun improvements by building what are now the house's wings. Thornton then provided the central structure and the joining elements to the wings, combining them with buff-colored stucco over brick. The "temple" porch and supporting columns provide a most striking addition to the front. The gardens and the historic house museum's collections are as rich and interesting as the home itself. A focal point is the collection of over 100 objects that belonged to George and Martha Washington, making Tudor Place the largest public depository of objects belonging to the first Presidential family outside of Historic Mount Vernon.

On September 28, 1811, Martha Peter's mother, Eleanor Calvert, age 56, a prominent member of the Calvert family of Maryland, Martha Washington's daughter-in-law, and George Washington's stepdaughter-in-law, died at Tudor Place. Martha Peter noted in a February 15, 1812 letter to a friend, Eliza Susan Quincy (1798–1884), how important it was to Martha that she was able to spend the last fortnight of her mother's life with her mother at Tudor Place to render attentions that could not be paid elsewhere.

In March 1813, after resigning his seat in the United States Congress, U.S. educator and political figure Josiah Quincy III and his wife, Eliza Susan Quincy, visited the Peters at Tudor Place. While there, Mrs. Peter gave Josiah General Washington's silver gorget with the ribbon attached to it. Washington's gorget, prominently featured in Charles Willson Peale's 1772 portrait of Colonel George Washington, was a metal collar designed to protect the throat of the wearer and Mrs. Peter had received the gorget at the division of her grandfather's estate. Quincy subsequently gave the gorget to the Washington Benevolent Society of Boston in Mrs. Peter's name on April 13, 1813.

On December 18, 1815 and on January 12, 1816, former United States Secretary of State Timothy Pickering visited the Peters at Tudor Place.

Thomas and Martha Peter raised eight children in Tudor Place, and hosted the Marquis de Lafayette during his 1824 tour of the United States. When the third child and eldest son, John Parke Custis Peter, came of age, his father conveyed a farm around Seneca, Maryland. John P.C. Peter built a small replica of Tudor Place from 1828 to 1830 called Montevideo. The farm also included the redstone Seneca Quarry, whose stone Peter would bid on and win the Smithsonian Institution Building project in 1847.

Prior to his death on March 1, 1844 as a result of the February 28, 1844 explosion the "Peacemaker" gun (then the worlds longest naval gun) on the USS Princeton, Commodore Beverley Kennon I (1793–1844), occupied Tudor Place with his wife Britannia Peter Kennon, daughter of Thomas Peter.

In about 1869, Robert E. Lee, the former commanding general of the Confederate army in the 1861–1865 American Civil War paid his last visit to the District of Columbia at Tudor Place before his death on October 12, 1870. By 1874, Tudor Place was occupied by Thos. Beverley Kennon (1830–1890), a grandson of Thomas Peter, a former U.S. Civil War captain with the Confederate Secret Service, and a post U.S. Civil War soldier under the Khedive of Egypt. In 1890, the year that Beverley Kennon died and at a time when Brittania W. Kennon was the oldest living descendant of Mrs. Washington, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine published an extensive article that detailed the collection of Martha Washington's relics that were maintained inside Tudor Place.

It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960. Tudor Place is located at 1644 31st Street, N.W. and is open to the public.

• Cyark Tudor Place 1.jpg

  Image of Tudor Place from the South, point cloud data from a Laser scan project conducted by nonprofit CyArk.

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  This elevation of the Temple Portico of Tudor Place is from a laser scan project conducted by nonprofit CyArk. The circular Temple Portico that extends into the space of the Saloon is a prominent architectural feature of the house.

• Cyark Tudor Place 3.jpg

  Cutaway image of Tudor Place central interior, point cloud data from a Laser scan project conducted by nonprofit CyArk.

• TudorPlaceEngravingPre1874.jpg

  Pre-1874 engraving of Tudor Place.

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  The gorget shown in this 1772 portrait of Colonel George Washington by Charles Willson Peale, worn as part of Washington's uniform in the French and Indian War to symbolize his commission as an officer in the Virginia Regiment, was given to Josiah Quincy III in March 1813 by the granddaughter of Washington at Tudor Place. Josiah Quincy III subsequently gave the gorget to the Washington Benevolent Society of Boston.

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  North façade.

• Tudor Place Carriage House.jpg

  Carriage House.

External links

• Tudor Place Foundation
• Tudor Place: Democracy Starts at Home, from AIArchitect article from May 25, 2007
• Tudor Place Digital Media Archive (creative commons-licensed photos, laser scans, panoramas) from Tudor Place Foundation/CyArk partnership