Usually, historic houses are saved through concerted efforts as communities come together
to preserve their legacies, but occasionally, with a bit of luck and a lot of confusion,
others are spared the wrecking ball. Hi everyone, Ken here, today we are heading
out to Washington DC to explore the oldest surviving house in the nation’s capital.
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When newly weds, Christopher and Rachel Layman set out to build their humble home, they had
no idea that it would one day become one of the most important buildings of the Nation’s legacy.
In 1764, they purchased a lot in Georgetown, which was at the time,
located in the Province of Maryland. They were not rich by any means and had to finance the
construction of their home which cost a little over 1 pound. The one story vernacular house
was constructed from fieldstone and blue granite blocks, most of which were cut to be 3 feet thick.
All the wood in the house, including the doors, were milled from local oak trees at
a time when expansive forests blanketed the area we now know as Washington DC.
Christopher suddenly passed away and Rachel sold the stone house to Cassandra Chew,
an affluent widow. In 1767, she began expanding the house, essentially building a brand new
house on top of the existing one, updating the architectural style to prerevolutionary colonial.
She raised the entrance of the house to the second floor, reserving the original first
floor for servants and a kitchen. Later on, in 1790, it was found that a portion of her
additions had been built beyond her property line, which she was forced to tear down.
She took the loss of square footage with stride, deciding to build up since she was
not able to build out, adding a 3rd floor, puncturing dormers through its roofline.
Before we check out Chew’s additions to the house,
let’s make our way in through the lower level to see the original, vernacular interior.
The original home was simple with only enough space for a work bench and simple
furniture to share the heat of the wood burning stove. Behind this room, towards the back of
the house, Chew added a newer kitchen with a dumbwaiter to send food to the second floor.
Which would have arrived in the dining room.
With wood paneled walls and built in storage cabinets, this sophisticated room highlights the
rapid transformation of Georgetown from wilderness to stylish civilization where proper dinners could
be hosted, something which would not have been possible just years earlier in the same house.
The main room was finished out with expertly
crafted millwork including an elaborate fireplace mantel set in plaster walls.
The third floor, though simpler, still boasted
a level of quaint elegance as it was reserved for bedrooms.
When Chew passed away in 1807, she left the house to her daughter Mary Brumley.
Instead of selling the home, she took it as an opportunity to start her own business, becoming
a merchant in the ever growing Georgetown. It continued to pass through the family for
generations until it was finally sold off in 1875. By the 1950s, it had become a used car dealership,
though no major changes had been made to the structure itself. Though, when it went up for
sale, it was slated to be torn down, but thanks to a local legend, it was spared the wrecking ball.
For decades, a local legend told the tale of George Washington and Pierre Charles
L’Enfant meeting in the Old Stone House to design the layout of Washington DC.
But, infact, they had been meeting at Suter’s Tavern. The confusion of these two sites can
be attributed to Chew leasing a room in her house to the owner of the tavern's son, John Suter Jr.
As the years passed and the facts became muddied by folklore, people began to believe that the Old
Stone House was Suter’s Tavern. Subsequent owners even went as far as to place signs on the house
declaring that it was George Washington’s former Headquarters. When the building went up for sale
in the 1950s, this folklore is the very reason that the federal government purchased the house to
preserver it. Though, upon further investigation, the truth was discovered. Nevertheless,
the Old Stone House, possibly because of this confusion, was spared demolition. Today,
it serves as a house museum, boasting the title of the oldest domestic structure in Washington DC.
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