Oak Lawn (Washington, D.C.)
Family members of his son, William, later sold the 600 acre (243 ha) land inheritance containing Widow's Mite to John Bowling.
At the time Widow's Mite was said to be shaped like a parallelogram with its boundaries extending from around north of the Old Naval Observatory to present-day Florida Avenue, 17th Street, and Rock Creek Park.
[1] The Holmead family owned the land for several decades and when the City of Washington was laid out, Widow's Mite was only a 16-acre (6.5 ha) estate.
[2][7] One year after his new house was complete, Morgan sold Oak Lawn to Edward C. Dean, a businessman who served as president of the Potomac Terra Cotta Company.
[1] By the early 1900s, the Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan neighborhoods were highly developed areas with commercial properties and large apartment buildings lining Connecticut Avenue and rows of middle and upper-class houses on the surrounding streets.
[5] Architects James R. Marshall and Frank G. Pierson were hired to design the $3,000,000 complex, which was to include a central tower, neoclassical temples, and an auditorium seating 3,000 people.
[3] Each building in the complex was meant to represent various Masonic organizations, including the Scottish Rite, Royal Arch Masonry, and Knights Templar.
[9] The property mostly remained untouched for the next decade, except for an occasional meeting of the Order of the Eastern Star in the Oak Lawn house.
In August 1940, the wooded estate, described as "the last great undeveloped piece of property close to the center of the downtown area", was purchased by a syndicate led by developer Roy C. Thurman, despite continued calls for the land to become a public park.
[9][1] Thurman hired noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a $12,000,000 mixed-use project that was unlike any development ever built in the country.
In addition to the towers, Crystal Heights was to include a 1,000-seat theater, large shopping center, fountains, and gardens, and Wright promised the Treaty Oak would not be removed.
Taking advantage of the gradual decline of the property's terrain, five parking levels for 1,500 cars were to be built along Florida Avenue.
[13] In addition to the hotel and apartments, plans included a sunken garden, nursery school, gymnasium, pool, and dining areas.
[14] Around the same time Kansas Senator Arthur Capper and California Representative Edouard Izac introduced legislation in Congress that would allocate $900,000 to purchase Oak Lawn.
[17] Plans for the project later changed, and in 1948, it was announced that a large shopping center, movie theater, and retail space would be built on the site.
When the house was demolished, it was described as containing expensive mahogany woodwork, ornate fireplaces, gas light fixtures, and a 1,000-gallon water tank on the third floor.
[19] But by September 1948 that plan was put on hold after local residents, including occupants of the adjoining Wyoming Apartments, protested the project.
[20] In 1949 the Cafritz and Tompkins companies offered the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization 35,000 square feet (3,252 sq m) of land, valued at $350,000, for the agency to build their headquarters on the site.
[22] In 1952 the companies announced plans for a twelve-story office building to be constructed on a one-acre (0.4 ha) portion of the property at the corner of Connecticut and Florida Avenues.
Due to the strict height limits for buildings in Washington, D.C., construction of the 12-story hotel included the city's largest excavation project.
