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Posted by Stephen Hansen

The Story of St. Thomas Church: A Rise From the Ashes

The story of St. Thomas church at 1772 Church Street, NW began in 1886 when Reverend John Abel Aspinwall moved to Washington, DC.  Aspinwall was the son of William Aspinwall,  president of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company who had built the Panama Railroad across Panama.  Due to poor health, John Aspinwall resigned as the rector of a church in Bay Ridge, Long Island, where he had been serving as rector for 21 years.   After a three-year rest, and perhaps in search of another wealthy congregation, Aspinwall came to Washington, purchasing a mansion at 17 Dupont Circle.  Upon his arrival, he became active in the formation of St. Thomas Parish and served as its first rector.  The parish’s first congregation began meeting in 1890 with a mere handful of people, worshipping in the abandoned Holy Cross Episcopal Church on Dupont Circle (now the site of the Sulgrave Club today at 1801 Massachusetts Avenue).  That parish had closed due to financial troubles a few years before (most of the weal
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Posted by Stephen Hansen

Phillips Row: The First Upper Middle Class Housing in Dupont Circle

By 1878, real estate, the price of building materials, and labor costs were at record lows due to economic deflation and were feared to go even lower. But a Washington lawyer, railroad manager, and entrepreneur, Samuel Louis Phillips, had faith that the economy was bound for a recovery. Phillips purchased 170 feet of frontage on Connecticut between the British Legation and William Galt’s house between 1302 and 1314 Connecticut Avenue from Thomas Sunderland, a member of the Pacific Syndicate.  Just a five years before, Sunderland had sold the southern half of the same block to the British Legation.

Adolf Cluss's Phillip's Row, Washington, DC
Phillip's Row.  Photo: Historical Society of Washington

Phillips hoped to attract investors by hiring former Board of Public Works architect Adolf Cluss to design a speculative row of town houses on the lots.  As Cluss had previous designed Shepherd's Row and William Stewart's "Castle," having Cluss also design these houses would help make them attractive.  For Phillip, Cluss designed seven fine four-story brick residences between 1302 and 1314 Connecticut Avenue, with basements, full-height bay windows and mansard roofs and which included all the latest improvements. 

With Shepherd’s Row, Cluss had introduced the concept of terraced row houses with full-height, front-projecting bays, a design element he would use again for the more modest Phillips Row five years later, thus establishing the dominant architectural vernacular for Washington’s middle-class row houses for decades to come. completed, Phillips Row was regarded as one of the finest improvements in Washington at the time. But the real estate market remained depressed in the late 1870s, and Phillips could not sell them. Instead, he kept them as rental properties for high-end tenants and waiting to sell them when the housing market recovered. 

Phillips Row remained as rental properties. In 1914, Phillips began making plans to raze the houses and replace them with seven store-fronted buildings with apartments above. He even went so far as to rewrite all the leases so they would all expire at the same time so he could secure possession of the properties all at once. But Phillips never realized his new plans for new retail space as he died in 1920. The buildings remained rentals until 1948, when they then were finally demolished. 

Site of Phillip's Row today.  Image: Google

Posted: Feb. 7, 2021
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