Battleground to Community

— Brightwood Heritage Trail —

We have Harry Wardman to thank for the rich variety of Sheridan Street rowhouses. Wardman, considered Washington's most prolific developer, built hundreds of offices, apartments, hotels, and comfortable rowhouses from 1899 to 1939. When he decided to sell some land he owned here along Sheridan Street, the purchasers hired a "Who's Who" of the era's best architects, resulting in an array of building styles.

Wardman kept two parcels, for which his chief architect Turkish-trained Mihran Mesrobian, employed two different styles. At numbers 1370-1378 are five Tudor style houses. Advertisements in 1934 boasted of the latest features: six rooms, two baths, sleeping porch, breakfast porch, fireplace, and built-in garage. Mesrobian gave Georgian touches to the roof lines and front porches of 1356-1368. With paneled recreation rooms and then-generous eight-cubic-foot refrigerators, they sold quickly.

Wardman lost much of his fortune at the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929, but by the early 1930s was back in business. The houses on Sheridan Street were among the last he built before his death in 1938.

Among Sheridan Street's styles is Colonial Revival, chosen for 1334-1346 by Clarence Harding, who was noted for designing the old Woodward and Lothrop Department Store on F Street. Arthur Brodie designed the houses at 1320-1332 in the Art Deco style. Charles Dillon used the Romantic style for numbers 1300 to 1308. And George T. Santmyers, who contributed buildings to Washington from 1914 until 1960, designed 1339-1391 Sheridan in the Popular English cottage and craftsman styles.

Sheridan Street's architectural styles include English Cottage by Santmyers on this side of the street, to your left. Across the street are Mesrobian's Tudor style houses followed by his Colonial Revival houses; Brodies eclectic houses with Art Deco details; ending with Dillon's Romantic style houses.

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