Warder Mansion (also known as Warder-Totten House) is an apartment complex at 2633 16th Street Northwest, in the

Meridian Hill Meridian Hill is a small urban Neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., neighborhood in Washington, D.C., located in Northwest (Washington, D.C.), Northwest D.C. Meridian Hill is often considered to be a part of the larger neighborhoods of Adams Morgan ...

neighborhood of

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

It is the only surviving building in the city designed by architect

Henry Hobson Richardson Henry Hobson Richardson, FAIA (September 29, 1838 – April 27, 1886) was an American architect, best known for his work in a style that became known as Richardsonian Romanesque. Along with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, Richardson is one ...

. In an early example of preservation commitment, the building was saved from demolition in the 1920s by being disassembled and moved 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north of its original site. In the 1990s, the Warder-Totten House's prospects for survival again looked bleak, but the building was saved a second time.

Warder

Benjamin H. Warder was president of Warder, Bushnell & Glessner Company, a major manufacturer of farm machinery. It was one of five companies merged in 1902 to form

International Harvester The International Harvester Company (often abbreviated IH or International) was an American manufacturer of agricultural and construction equipment, automobiles, commercial trucks, lawn and garden products, household equipment, and more. It wa ...

. In 1885, Warder hired Boston architect H. H. Richardson to design his house at 1515

K Street NW K Street is a major thoroughfare in the United States capital of Washington, D.C., known as a center for lobbying and the location of numerous advocacy groups, law firms, trade associations, and think tanks. In political discourse, "K Street" h ...

. Richardson died in 1886, but his firm completed the house in 1888. Warder died in 1894, and his widow occupied the house until 1921.

Totten

In 1923, the Warder House was about to be demolished to erect an office building. Architect George Oakley Totten Jr. bought the exterior stone (except the front doorway, which reportedly went to the Smithsonian) and much of the interior woodwork. He transported the building, piece by piece (reportedly in a

Model T Ford The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by the Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first mass-affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. Th ...

), to its present

site, reassembled it over two years, and converted it into an apartment house. The reconstructed building later housed the National Lutheran Council and the Antioch College of Law. The building was listed on the D.C. Inventory in 1964, and on the National Register in 1972. Antioch College moved out in 1986. The building was vacant for more than a dozen years, and was largely reduced to a shell by fires and vandalism. It was placed on the D.C. Preservation League's Most Endangered Places List in 1996, and remained on that list for several years. Renovated in 2001–02, it now serves as the entrance to Warder Mansion, a complex of 38 one- and two-bedroom apartments carved out of the house and a 9-story addition.

Furniture

The Warder house once contained custom-made furnishings. Warder's daughter Alice (1877–1952) married diplomat John Work Garrett (1872–1942) at the house in December 1908, with First Lady Edith Roosevelt in attendance. Ambassador Garrett eventually inherited his family's Baltimore mansion, "Evergreen," and subsequently moved some of the furnishings there. Evergreen eventually became Johns Hopkins University's

Evergreen Museum & Library Evergreen Museum & Library is a historic house museum and research library in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is located between the campuses of the Notre Dame of Maryland University and Loyola University Maryland. It is operated by Johns ...

; its Warder pieces include a set of three Thomas Sheraton-inspired chairs and an ornately inlaid center table from the D.C. house's drawing room, and a handsome pair of possibly-architect-designed "throne" chairs carved with sunflowers, an ornate "W," and the year 1887. One of the Warder dining chairs is in the collection of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

Gallery

File:Warder House 1515 K St NW circa 1900.jpg, Warder House, at 1515 K Street NW, circa 1900. File:Warder Diningroom WashingtonDC 1885-88.jpg, Warder

dining room A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually next to the kitchen for convenience in serving, though in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level. Historically the dining room is furnished with ...

, circa 1900. File:Warder-Totten House 2012-09-13 18-06-33.jpg, Warder Mansion Apartments in 2012. Note the 9-story rear addition, right. File:Armchair MET ADA56.jpg, Colonial Revival armchair (1886–88), by Francis H. Bacon for A. H. Davenport and Company, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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