Cleveland Abbe House
Cleveland Abbe House, also known as the Arts Club of Washington, is a historic building in Washington DC. It is listed both on the National Register of Historic Places as well as in the National Historic Landmarks.
History
In 1806, the native of Philadelphia wealthy businessman Timothy Caldwell decides to build a representative house in the capital. Two years later the building was completed in the Federal style. In 1811, the then U.S. Secretary of State and later President James Monroe and his wife rented the property and arranged it with furniture from Paris, where Monroe was minister in the 1790s and later participated in the negotiation of the Louisiana Purchase. After the extensive destruction of the White House in 1814 during the British -American War Cleveland Abbe House was a social center in the capital. So here was regularly Dolley Madison, wife of President- guest. Also during the first six months of his own presidency resided Monroe from March to September 1817 to the restoration of the White House here. The first balls of his term took place on the second floor of Cleveland Abbe House. After the exodus of the Monroe House seat of the embassy of the United Kingdom was, for here, among other Stratford Canning and Charles Richard Vaughan worked. Then lived Charles Francis Adams, Sr., son of former U.S. President John Quincy Adams, in Cleveland Abbe House.
In 1877, acquired the astronomer and meteorologist Cleveland Abbe, who is considered the founder of the National Weather Service, the estate. He lived here until 1909. It is especially his connection with the house and not of Monroe, who led a National Historic Landmark for the recognition. In the May 1916 local artists founded the Arts Club of Washington and bought the estate of the family from Abbe, to use it as a club house. This club, whose first chairman of the sculptor Henry Kirke Bush -Brown, was the first of its kind was in the city of women allowed membership. Famous visitors to the early prominent popularity gladdening clubs have included Claudette Colbert, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tallulah Bankhead. The property is still owned by the Arts Club of Washington.
On March 24, 1969 Cleveland Abbe House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. On May 15, 1975, it was declared a National Historic Landmark.