The nouveau-riche crowd has made many an eyeball roll reflexively skyward. Call them robber barons or captains of industry, dub their heyday industrial or gilded, today we can revel in the Beaux-Arts grandeur of Washington’s Massachusetts Avenue, better known as Embassy Row. We’ll begin at Dupont Circle and introduce you to the families who decided to showcase their fortunes in the nation’s capital: members of the first ranks of mining, railroads, banking, publishing, politicians and speculators in the 1880s and 90s. Spendthrift offspring, the Great Depression and other misfortune eventually drained the resources of many families. Only 50 years later, embassies, clubs and other institutions were buying up their mansions for as little as 10 cents on a dollar.
In between, the high life and high architecture has made for some great stories. Alice Roosevelt Longworth delivered her famous line here ─ “If you don’t have anything nice to say, sit next to me” ─ and spirited chum Evalyn Walsh McLean lived a few doors up where she kept the Hope Diamond. Our walk ends outside the magnificent Phillips Collection museum, former residence of steel heir and avid art collector Duncan Phillips.
Meet your licensed D.C. tour guide outside the Dupont Circle Metro station at 19th Street and Connecticut Avenue, NW. The walk will travel approximately one and a half miles, stopping first in Dupont Circle itself and then continuing along Massachusetts Avenue (aka “Embassy Row”.) At Sheridan Circle, the walk travels on R Street, NW until the tour’s conclusion at the Phillips Collection Museum. Here participants can enter the museum (admission charge), make the short walk to the Dupont Circle Metro station’s Q Street entrance or enjoy lunch at one of the many nearby cafes and restaurants. The entire walk route is level.
This will be a walking tour of Washington, D.C.’s Embassy Row. Hear about the wealthy families who built mansions along Massachusetts Avenue. Then, see the former home of the socialite who last owned the Hope Diamond.
Learn about America’s oldest hereditary society and its elegant headquarters and find out why embassy properties are not required to adhere to American laws. Discover where Franklin D. Roosevelt lived when serving as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy.
Make an optional visit into America’s first modern art museum, the Phillips Collection.