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Cleveland Park If you have questions about the following data or want more information, contact us at 202-965-3715. If you would like to be included in periodic e-mail updates on this or other neighborhoods, send your name and e-mail address to info@hananhomes.com. As of September 30, 2008, 10 single-family homes were for sale in Cleveland Park. Five of the houses are selling for $l-2 million, one between $2-3 million and one over $4 million. Five homes were under contract. In the third quarter of 2008, 17 homes sold with six between $1-2 million, two between $2-3 million, and one over $5 million. In the first half of 2008, 20 single-family homes sold in Cleveland Park. In 2007, there were 37 sales, while 39 homes sold in 2006. The average sale price in the first half of 2008 was $1,767,588. This compares to $1,312,377 and $1,337,246 in 2007 and 2006, respectively. The average list price was $l,827,125 in the first half of 2008, $1,330,819 in 2007, and $1,344,123 in 2006. Listed below are the sales by price range.
The number of condominiums and cooperatives that were sold in the third quarter of 2008 totaled just two, with one under contract. There were eight condos and coops for sale as of September 30, 2008. For the first half of 2008, 9 condos/coops were sold, 105 for the year 2007, and 97 in 2006. The average sales price was $453,206 in the first half of 2008, $373,679 in 2007, and $362,422 in 2006. Listed below are the sales by price range.
The houses built during the first half of the original Cleveland Park development are large frame structures designed to look like rambling summer cottages on the New England shoreline. They have turrets, towers, steep gables, pilastered chimneys, and varying styles of windows including bays, oriels, and Palladian. Other decorative details include Richardsonian arches, decorative brackets, and Adamesque swags. The neighborhood homes are particularly known for their wrap-around porches. Because the original developers wanted each house to have its own individual look, the styles of houses include Queen Anne, Shingle Style, Classical Revival, and Mission Style among others. By 1904, the house designs were simplified and while still constructed of wood some were covered with pebble dash. The first brick house was built in 1905. What is known as the four-square house with a Prairie influence also became popular. The homes built during the 1920s and 1930s were more modest dwellings built in rows with minimal side yards, but they have often imitated the eclectic styles throughout Cleveland Park. Many were semi-detached. The Roseland estate was sold, and while the manor is being refurbished, most of the property is being developed. In the area of Cleveland Park to the west of Wisconsin are a few rows of townhouses, Tudors, a handful of new homes, along with homes similar to those to the east. A section of the Tregaron estate was purchased by a developer and the neighborhood and the DC Historic Preservation Review Board have worked toward reaching an agreement to preserve much of the landscaped grounds. In 1980 part of McLean Gardens were converted to duplex, flat, and loft condominiums and by late 2005 more conversions were being sold. Additional apartments at McLean Gardens have been renovated into condominiums. There are a few large condominium buildings on Connecticut Avenue, including the Broadmoor. The developers of Cleveland Park used high praise to describe their subdivisions in their promotional brochures, and the same could be said about the neighborhood today. Even the local paper described it as the "Queen of Washington Suburbs." In the city's first zoning law issued in 1920, shopping districts on Connecticut Avenue were limited to four areas with the rest to remain for residential use. The Upton Theater, an Art Deco structure opened in 1936, still premieres movies in the Washington area. The theater is located in a block of shops with additional shops and restaurants across Connecticut Avenue in Forest Hills. The Cleveland Park Metro station is on Connecticut Avenue as is the public library. The John Eaton School was opened in 1911. Several nursery and pre-schools are located in Cleveland Park including the National Child Research Center, KinderHaus of Cleveland Park, and the Washington Hebrew Congregation Early Childhood Center. The neighborhood is just north of the Cathedral (see history of Massachusetts Avenue Heights) and the Lower and Middle Schools of the National Cathedral School are located in Cleveland Park. The upper school campus of Washington International School is also located in the neighborhood on the grounds of the Tregaron estate. The Hope Community Charter School recently relocated to Massachusettds Avenue. The Cleveland Park Club continues today and its grounds include a swimming pool. The Macomb Street playground was recently renovated and holds popular summer camps. On the western side of Cleveland Park surrounding Wisconsin Avenue lies the home of the Washington School of Ballet. Glover-Archbold Park sits close to the neighborhood's western border. On Wisconsin Avenue are several shops, restaurants, a Giant supermarket, Starbucks, and a nearby police station. To the far west of the neighborhood is the US Navy Security Station, and WRC TV and Radio. The major part of Cleveland Park, like many of the surrounding neighborhoods, was farmland that was part of a larger tract called the Rock of Dunbarton patented to George Beall of Georgetown in 1723. One of the earliest known houses in the area was Friendship, often called the Villa, owned by the Stoddert family in 1711. In the early 1790s part of George Beall's land was purchased by General Uriah Forrest, George Washington's aide-de-camp and a former mayor of Georgetown. Forrest and his business partners, Colonels Benjamin Stoddert and William Deakins, Jr., over the next few years acquired almost 1,300 acres which they called Pretty Prospects. In 1794, Forrest and his family moved from Georgetown and built an estate they named Rosedale. In the years before the Civil War, Pretty Prospects' acreage was subdivided and sold for country estates. In the 1840s H.H. Dent built Springland. Ann Forrest Green, daughter of Uriah Forrest, gave land to her son George who erected Forrest Hill which was purchased in 1885 by President Grover Cleveland for $21,500 before marrying his ward, Frances Folsom. W.M. Poindexter was hired to change the stone farmhouse into a Victorian summer house. The President changed the name to Oak View (often called Red Top) and made the estate his summer residence. Twin Oaks was another grand estate built in the mid 1880s for Gardiner Greene Hubbard, the first president of the National Geographic Society. Another estate off Klingle Street was the Tregaron. The only large estate in Cleveland Park on the west side of Wisconsin Avenue was Friendship. The tract of land was known to have had a small house on it as early as 1695, but in 1713 over 3,000 acres named Friendship were granted to Col. Thomas Addison and James A. Stoddert by George Calvert (Lord Baltimore). Addison, who took the southern half of Friendship, gave the property to his daughter and her husband, William, as a wedding gift. In 1905, a brick house over 100 years old was owned by a Dr. French. It eventually was owned by Georgetown College and used as a theologian's retreat. The college renamed it, The Villa. In 1898, John McLean purchased The Villa and its 60 acres for $250,000 and renamed it Friendship. His son and his wife, Evalyn Walsh McLean, owner of the Hope Diamond, inherited the estate in 1916. Because of the bridges built across Rock Creek at Calvert Street and over Klingle Valley to extend Connecticut Avenue (see history of Chevy Chase) and the opening of streetcar service in 1890 on Wisconsin Avenue and two years later on Connecticut Avenue, development of Cleveland Park and the surrounding areas became extremely attractive. In 1894, Thomas Waggaman and John Sherman purchased over 400 acres of land north of Woodley Road between the two avenues. Their first development, which they named Cleveland Park, began on Newark Street. While Waggaman was the landowner and financier, Sherman was responsible for the design, construction and sale of houses for the next 24 years. He built a stone lodge to serve as a community center for the neighborhood where the Cleveland Park Library now stands. From 1895 until 1901, Sherman hired well-known architects to produce individual designs for the development's residences. Among them were Paul Pelz, one of the architects of the Library of Congress, Waddy Wood, who was to design Woodrow Wilson's house and who introduced the first Shingle and Mission Revival homes to Cleveland Park, Frederick Bennett Byle, a commercial and residential architect who settled in the neighborhood, and Robert Thompson Head, the most prolific in the company's hire who introduced Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Japanese, and Prairie styles. Sherman's wife, Ella Bennett Sherman, a New York-trained artist, designed most of the houses from 1902 until 1909. The design of some of the winding streets was credited to the landscape firm of Frederick Law Olmsted. By 1904 there were about 60 houses in the Cleveland Park development. Two other new subdivisions, Oak View, which was the 3400 to 3600 blocks of Macomb and Lowell Streets and Cleveland Heights were platted in 1894. The two were eventually absorbed into Cleveland Park. Two well-known residents of the neighborhood during this time were Commodore Robert Peary, credited with discovering the location of the North Pole, Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor, and actress Helen Hayes. With the National Bureau of Standards, the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institute, the U.S. Geological Survey, and Naval Observatory located nearby (see histories of ries of ries of North Cleveland Park, Forest Hills and Observatory Circle), the facilities' employees sought nearby housing. Homes in the neighborhood ranged from $5,000 to $8,000 and residents represented scientists and other professionals, managers, and business owners. W.C. and A.N. Miller, who subsequently developed Wesley Heights and Spring Valley, lived and worked from their homes in Cleveland Park. They also built their first homes on Highland Place. When Thomas Waggaman filed for bankruptcy in 1905, he was forced to auction off his land holdings. Between 1910 and 1930, the Millers purchased multiple lots and began filling vacant lots with smaller and less expensive houses, starting on Woodley and 34th and 35th Streets. Other developers, including Charles and Louise Taylor, completed the majority of the neighborhood's houses by the 1930s, built in rows and without expansive yards. Architects used by the developers from the 1930s to today include Appleton Clark, Marsh and Peter, Hornblower and Marshall, and modernist I.M. Pei who designed the West Wing of the National Gallery. In the 1960s and 1970s, Winthrop Faulkner, a Cleveland Park architect like his father, designed several homes for his family from 1963 to 1978 on Ordway and 35th Streets. In the 1920s the Cleveland Park Club was founded. In 1922 Agnes Miller donated her house to the club to be used for community gatherings. From the Depression until the 1950s the neighborhood became less appealing. Some houses were left empty, others divided up during World War II, and financing for what was being considered a blighted area became difficult. By the early 1960s new residents that included journalists, politicians and academics joined with long-time residents to defeat development pressures and helped defeat a proposed freeway through the northwest section. They also helped save McLean Gardens (see below) from high-rise commercial development in the 1980s. Few of the grand manors remain in Cleveland Park. The Rosedale estate was sold and developed although the manor house remains. Twin Oaks, bought by the Chinese government and used as its ambassador residence for many years, is now the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office. Oak View was sold to real estate developer, Frances Newland, for $135,000 in 1890 and was razed to make room for the Oak View development. The Friendship estate was sold by Evalyn Walsh McLean in 1941 to the Federal government for $1 million which developed the estate into temporary housing for war-time federal workers. The area is now called McLean Gardens. Cleveland Park received its listing in the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
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