Dougal House, 3259 R Street, Northwest, Washington, District of Columbia, DC

Significance: Andrew Jackson Downing, designer of a romantic vision of the National Mall (not implemented) and the most romantic figure of nineteenth-century American design, wrote in 1850 of the need for truth in domestic architecture, that a country home reflect its function, its location, its owner. Built four years later, on the edge of civilized Georgetown Heights, the Dougal House exquisitely expressed Downing's precepts. And as Georgetown changed and tastes in architecture changed so did the Dougal House. While its architecture says much about mid to late nineteenth-century architecture in Georgetown and the United States, the Dougal House, through its non-architectural artifacts, suggests much about the changes in who owned property in Georgetown in that period.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N681
Survey number: HABS DC-837
Building/structure dates: ca. 1854 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: before 1959 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1959 Subsequent Work
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 67000025