By Frank Leone
The early 1870s were a booming time in Washington. The Civil War caused a significant increase in population and housing was needed for new year-round residents. To become a modern city, and an appropriate Nation’s Capital, the city needed infrastructure. Specifically, it needed paved roads, sidewalks, street lights, sewer and water lines, gas lines, parks, and a solution for its malodorous and dangerous canal. City conditions were so bad that Congress considered relocating the Capital to the Midwest. Fortunately, wealthy real estate developer Alexander Robey “Boss” Shepherd became a Commissioner of Public Works and then Governor of DC’s short lived territorial government and provided the needed infrastructure. The façade of one of the rowhouse developments he built, Michler Place (1777 F Street), still stands across 18th Street from the DACOR Bacon House.
Washington D.C. has a complicated relationship with Democracy. Following the Civil War (and African American suffrage), Congress in 1871 eliminated the city’s elected mayor and council system and installed a Territorial Government with a territorial Governor, Board of Public Works, and Legislative Council, appointed by the President (Ulysses S. Grant), and an elected House of Delegates. (The City of Washington, Washington County, and the City of Georgetown also were consolidated.)
DC native Alexander Shepherd (1835-1902) was a leading proponent of the new government and as a Public Works Commissioner and later Governor, he embarked on a massive building plan for the city. Over four years, the city built 150 miles of roads and sidewalks, installed 125 miles of sewers, gas and water mains, and streetlights, planted 60,000 trees, and covered the Washington Canal. In building the city, he massively overspent and the financial panic of 1873 rendered DC effectively bankrupt. Congress was not amused and abolished the Territorial Government and installed a Presidentially appointed three-man Commission which governed DC for the next 100 years. Congress investigated Shepherd for corruption but made no formal charges.
One of many rowhouses Shepherd developed was Michler Place (b. 1870-1871), a row of thirteen residences constructed as a single unit. The row was designed in Second Empire style, with plain brick facades ornamented with cast iron detailing and a Mansard roof providing not visible (therefore non-taxable) attic space.
The dwellings, located in “the White House neighborhood,” housed officers stationed at the new State, War and Navy Building (now the Eisenhower Executive Office Building), and journalists. Government employees rarely brought their families to Washington prior to the 1870s. After the construction of residential buildings like Michler Place, employees and their families seldom left.
F Street is a good illustration of one aspect of Shepherd’s rapid building. The original streets of Washington followed the natural topography of hills and valleys. In laying the sewer and other lines it was necessary to regrade the streets. Shepherd raised or lowered the streets without regard to neighboring houses, leaving some, like Dacor Bacon and the GWU President’s F Street House, several feet above grade – owners had retaining walls and stairs installed to permit continued access to the houses’ front doors.
As downtown DC became less residential, its buildings became increasingly commercial. After 1940, the homes at Michler Place were converted to offices, beauty shops, dry cleaners, bakeries, restaurants, and liquor stores. Between 1965 and 1972, six of the original row houses were demolished.
In response to an application from Don’t Tear it Down (now the DC Preservation League), Michler Place was designated as a local District of Columbia landmark on January 18, 1979. The designation did not prevent the dwellings from being largely demolished in 1980. Portions of the facades were preserved and incorporated into the new building, which currently houses the DC office of the Council on Foreign Relations. Among the 1,000 houses Shepherd built as a developer are 2022 and 2024 I St., now part of Western Market.
The row dwellings were likely named after Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Michler, like Shepherd, a close friend of President Ulysses S. Grant. As Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds (1867-1871), Michler advocated landscaping the city’s wide avenues as elegant boulevards.
Sources: 1777 F Street NW, Our History; Don’t Tear It Down, “Michler Place Historic Landmark Application,” Oct. 5, 1978; Historic American Building Survey, “Michler Place,” HABS No. DC-340, 1983; John P. Richardson, Alexander Robey Shepherd: the Man Who Built the Nation’s Capital, Ohio Univ. Press, 2016; Carol Lancaster, A Song to My City: Washington DC, Georgetown Univ. Press, 2016; FBA History Project.
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