We had a slight change of plan today as it is forecast to rain on and off all day so we decided that we would do the inside things today, a few historic houses and museums, so macs on we set off for the first stop of the day Decatur house on Lafayette square. Unfortunately they only run tours of the house on Mondays but we thought it was worth going round anyway to see what the museum had in it. This was one of the first houses to be built on Lafayette square and started the trend of society people moving into the area and building grand homes within sight of the White House. Unfortunately the museum has very few exhibits, but they did have a good guide to the main houses in the square which we walked round. It was still spitting with rain when we had finished so we decided to take the metro to our next stop which was Woodrow Wilsons house. This was purchased for him to move into when he left office. The only way to see the house is by guided tour and I would definitely recommend doing one, it started with a short video about Wilson providing some private and political context to the man. He actually had a stroke while in office and the reason they stayed on in Washington at the end of his Presidency was to receive continued medical care. Woodrow was married twice, his first wife died while they were in the White House and his second wife Edith Bolling was 12 years younger than him but she was independently wealthy and as a wedding gift from the people of Vermont she received a very large trophy, not particularly ornate or decorative but may have been the origin of the term trophy wife. Woodrow had a stroke on 1919 but remained In office until 1921 and many feel that Edith who although initially was only trying to restrict access to her husband latterly made a number of decisions and suggestions in his place.
Edith had attended a party at the house and asked the owner if they could buy it but he said it wasn’t for sale so she asked the president to talk to the owner and funnily enough he agreed to sell to the Wilson family! Our next stop was Dumbarton house which was built in the federal period (very similar in time and style to Georgian) and the ground floor is laid out as it would have been at the time, unfortunately it was difficult to get a feel for the family and why they lived here as there wasn’t much information on them. Upstairs was dedicated to ‘the national society of the colonial dames of America’ which is basically a woman’s organisation that promotes historic preservation. Our final stop before lunch was the inspirationally named stone house which is a stone house. It is the oldest house still in its original location in Washington. It was actually really good to look round, it is a pre-revolutionary house started around 1765 and completed around 1780. It was probably built for a middle class family as despite being quite basic by today’s standards but had quite spectacular fireplaces especially for the era. As we were in Georgetown we decided we should probably stop for lunch so we found and Italian and had a very pleasant lunch but it was difficult to get going again! The weather forecast was proving to be more accurate than we expected as it has said it would be nice this afternoon and by the time we finished lunch the sun was out again so we changed plan again and decided to take a walk around the remaining national monuments. Our first stop was Thomas Jefferson Memorial, Jefferson is standing in a very Romanesque looking temple on the edge of the tidal basin with a number of quotations around him. I think this is one of my favourite monuments, very peaceful and in a great location looking across the water towards the Washington monument. We walked round to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial which has the largest square footage of any memorial, it was nice but to me a little soulless, FDR actually had 4 terms in office and they have created different sections dedicated to the different terms with a number of quotes and scenes to support these. From there we walked to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial which was different again the statue of Dr King is on a rock that has been taken out of the middle of a ‘mountain’. Our final stop of the day was the Washington monument it was started in 1848 but the civil war halted construction so it wasn’t finished until 1884. The difference in colour shows where marble was sourced from different areas before and after the civil war. It was then back to the apartment to have a drink, relax and something to eat while planning what to do with our final day!
