Do you know your Louis? If not, this wall at the Louvre's Musee des Arts Decoratifs might help. Talk about reference library!
Directly across the street from The Lindens is my favorite house in DC still in private hands, the Mary E. Stewart mansion, designed by Paul Cret.
Cret started work on the house for Stewart, the daughter of a lumber baron, in 1938 and it was completed the next year in 1939. Stewart's sister, Devore Chase, lived next door in a (slightly smaller) grand Louis XV style mansion designed by William Bottomley in 1931. The design was meant to compliment that house but transition to the more sedate Georgian style house (the Lindens) on the other side of the property. 
Above -Stewart's sister's house, the Devore Chase mansion. photo courtesy of robinsoneditions It currently is the dc residence of the Sultan of Oman and looks only slightly different these days - lucky man!
I think this house sums up all of the charms we Americans have with French style. All of the romance is there: creamy limestone, a tall slate roof, charming balconies and the seemingly random placement of decorative round windows and other sculptural elements. Stewart probably went to Cret with this grocery list as he was an architect born in Lyon who studied at the Ecole de Beaux Arts before moving to America.
The house is large at nearly 12,000 SF and nearly fills the lot entirely except for a small brick entry drive and the planting bed you see here along with a small side yard. As she built the house after her sister, I can't help but wonder if she wanted to slightly out-do her: nothing wrong with some sibling rivalry! Kalorama is a tight neighborhood against Rock Creek Park with very few roomy lots for yards: The grand houses tend to max out the property here in the heart of the city.
One nice feature is that the house contains 2 garages off the side street by the service entrance. While the house might look a bit odd slid up against its neighbor like this, I assure you most of the grand residences in this part of the city do the same. The house would look lovely on a large piece of land but with this much style and a primo location, you take what you can get!
I first was made aware of the property years ago when it was featured in the AIADC magazine in the summer issue of 2004 as a home of note, and it became a part of my clipping files -the article is scanned in below.
The complete drawing set for the Stewart house by Paul Cret is located at the Athenaeum library in Philedelphia along with hundreds of other drawings from his estate. As you have to pay $40 to access them online (sorry, but no thanks!!!) I'll have to make a trip up to Philly to view the documents in person someday soon!
The oldest house in DC is not the White House, and interestingly enough, did not start life out in 'the district' but rather north of Boston! The Lindens (also known as the King Hooper House) was originally built in 1754 as a Georgian styled country retreat in Danvers, Massachusetts. The house was dismantled and moved to Kalorama in 1934 by George and Miriam Morris who bought the house for $14,000 and had it moved to showcase their collection of early American furniture.
The key architect from Colonial Williamsburg's restoration, Walter Macomber, was hired to oversee the rebuilding with some revisions: noteably a concrete and steel foundation and a small addition to accomodate modern plumbing. The house retains its' original name, based on the Linden trees that lined the driveway back in Massachusetts. I love the colonial fence which surrounds the large property and the lush plantings: but where are the linden trees!
Long stretches of cold weather like we're having help me realize why people have decorated the interiors of their homes with flower images for centuries: reminders of warmer weather! This exuberant wallpaper panel is all you need: I feel warmer already! It is paired with 18th century painted furniture which bears more of the same fruit. Hopefully this will help warm you!
The Villa Karma on Switzerland's Lake Geneva was his first major project, and here he was experimenting with what modernism was and yet still referencing the classical tradition more than in his later projects. It's this juxtoposition that I love so much and yet is so hard to find.
Loos's life, by the way, was a veritable soap opera, that would shock the most liberal biographer today. His contemporary, Frank Lloyd Wright was a walk in the park comparitively! But I'm not here to talk about his life ( you can read about it on wikipedia HERE if you're interested). The rear of the house, which faces the lake, takes advantage of the views with steep garden terracing, huge windows and numerous outdoor rooms.
Here you can see some of the classical Doric columns that are used here on a loggia, but also at the front entrance as seen in the top image. Their presence is striking against the slick and austere facade of stucco. Notice also the statue of a face to the left - a classical element.
While he eschewed traditional ornament, he used beautiful materials on the interior of the house to great effect: nothing boring here. The house is a positive mausoleum of beautiful marbles. In the oval entry foyer, a pattern of black and white marble on the floor contrasts with a rosey marble used on the walls and gold tiles on the ceiling.
The upper level of this opening, as seen from the hallway above, was an obvious precedent for Michael Grave's own house in New Jersey (as was much of the work of Loos). Recognize it?
The library again shows the decorative (but not ornamental) use of marble and wood with large windows overlooking the lake. I could spend all day in this room!
This corner of the library shows another modern take on 'tradition' - a stained glass window.
The most famous room in the house, however (which also appears on the cover) is the master bathroom. Classicism rears its head again, this time in a black marble. The bronze doors are studded and I wouldn't want to walk into them in the middle of the night! The sink is between the 2 doors seen below: this room is enormous - a veritable temple to cleanliness!
The dining room again uses tons of marble, with an interesting metal ceiling. I wish I could find a color photograph of this. Do you think it's copper? Steel? While this room looks cold in this photo,I think with a tablecloth, dishes, chairs - it would warm right up. But this is definitely a cold house, probably better suited for a tropical climate rather than Switzerland!
The loggia, off the dining room is similar in form, but the floor pattern from the dining room is echoed on the ceiling out here in a classical motif. The niches at the end of the space are also somewhat classical (and I feel were probably added by Ehrlich and not Loos)
The photographs are by Roberto Schezen from the marvelous book, Adolf Loos Architecture 1903-1932 by Kenneth Frampton and Joseph Rosa. 
I now have a personal scanner -exciting news here at ArchitectDesign! I wanted so much to share with you one of my favorite books, which if you love beautiful historic interiors, you must add to your library - Potsdam by Gert Streidt (author) and Klaus Frahm (who provided the lush photography). 
This is probably the design book I refer to the most -my comfort blanket. As an exchange student in high school, I visited this neighborhood of palaces outside of Berlin and knew that this is what my passion was -great residential design. I remember standing in this room above in Sancoucci (which I've blogged about before HERE) as if it were yesterday and being totally blown away. Known as the Voltaire room (he supposedly lived here while in residence at the palace from 1750 till 1753), the room features wood paneling painted a beautiful yellow, marble floors and a built in bed (Thomas Jefferson wasn't the only one!). The painted woodwork features fruits cultivated in the palace park and greenhouse. The goal of the rococo movement, used here and at which the Germans excelled, was to integrate the surroundings into a unified whole -this was accomplished in this room by using the same motifs on the walls, ceiling, chandelier and even embroidery.
Another favorite room featured in the book is the private writing room of the royal quaters at the New Palace (literally across the park from Sanssouci). Again we have beautiful painted wood paneling but an unusual porcelain framed mirror above the fireplace (not painted wood which is more usual). The amazing writing table is covered in tortoise shell and silver plated bronze overlays; So over the top gorgeous.
I saved the best for last. This desk, by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, is probably my favorite piece of furniture ever. It is located in the ladies-in-waiting drawing room at the Charlottenhof Palace, an AMAZING neoclassical house from 1839, also designed by Schinkel. The interiors are very simple, almost modern, and were considered very middle class in their day. This simplicity was due to a small budget but also the changing of fashion. The building stands in sharp contrast to some of the earlier rococo palaces featured in the area. 
I was in hallmark recently looking for a card and saw an architecturally correct model of an old romanesque church -and it was an ornament!
Turns out this is the last of a series of 12. Hallmark has been doing faithful architectural renditions of churches for 12 years: Where have I been? The box even gives the history of the style and when it was most popular (1890s-1920s). Each little individual red brick is rendered on the facade, as well as a red clay tile roof, which you can't see in my poor photographs!
Who knew hallmark was giving architectural history lessons! I'm still not sure whether to hang this on the tree (you can insert a christmas light bulb inside to make the stained glass glow) or place it under the tree -like a little village. I think this is a great small gift for any architect friend or a child interested in architecture.
Now I just have to collect the other 11!!
