The Cutts–Madison House (also known as the Dolley Madison House) is a Federal-style historic home, now used for offices, located at 1520 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The house is best known for being the residence of former First Lady Dolley Madison, who lived there from November 1837 until her death in July 1849.Allgor, Catherine. A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation. Reprint ed. New York: Macmillan, 2007.
The Cutts–Madison House is part of the Lafayette Square Historic District, a National Historic Landmark District."Lafayette Square Historic District." National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. U.S. Department of the Interior. No date. Accessed 2009-12-01. Now owned by the federal government, it is used as part of a federal courts complex.
Construction
On March 31, 1793, the U.S. Commissioners in charge of selling federally owned lots in the District of Columbia agreed to sell square 221 to Samuel Davidson. Davidson died in 1810, and his son and two daughters inherited the property. Richard Cutts purchased lots 12, 13, 14, and 15 of square 221 from the Davidson heirs on October 3, 1818.
The house was constructed in 1818–1819 by Richard Cutts, who built the house for himself and his wife, Anna Payne Cutts (Dolley Payne Madison's sister).Miller, Albert D. Distinguished Residents of Washington, D. C.: Science-Art-Industry. Washington, D.C.: National Capital Press, 1916.Smith, Hal H. "Historic Washington Homes." Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington. 1908.Bednar, Michael J. L'Enfant's Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. Evelyn, Douglas E.; Dickson, Paul; and Ackerman, S.J. On This Spot: Pinpointing the Past in Washington, D.C. 3rd rev. ed. Dulles, Va.: Capital Books, 2008. Carrier, Thomas J. Washington D.C.: A Historical Walking Tour. Mount Pleasant, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 1999. The house had two stories, a gabled roof, dormer windows, and chimneys at the north and south ends of the house.Côté, Richard N. Strength and Honor: The Life of Dolley Madison, Mt. Pleasant, S.C.: Corinthian Books, 2005. The exterior was originally grey stucco.Barnard, Ella Kent. Dorothy Payne, Quakeress: A Side-Light Upon the Career of "Dolley" Madison. Philadelphia: Ferris & Leach, 1909. The front of the house faced Lafayette Square.Bryan, Wilhelmus Bogart. A History of the National Capital From Its Foundation Through the Period of the Adoption of the Organic Act. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916. The lot on which the house sat was a large one, with extensive space on all sides. Dirt roads bordered the house on the west and north sides, and a large garden with flowers and fruit trees occupied the east and south sides of the house. The garden extended south as far as the Tayloe House on the south end of the block. The home was considered one of the more "pretentious" domiciles in the city at the time.Peacock, Virginia Tatnall. Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century. New York: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1901.
The city gravelled the street in front of the house in 1823.
Occupants
Dolley Madison
Cutts secured a mortgage to build the house, and on August 22, 1828, the bank holding the mortgage sold it to ex-President James Madison for $5,750.Cosmos Club. The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C.: With A Documentary History of the Club From Its Organization to November 16, 1903. Washington, D.C.: Cosmos Club, 1904.Wentzel, Volkmar Kurt. Washington by Night: Vintage Photographs From the 30s. Reprint ed. Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum Publishing, 1998. When James Madison died in 1836, Dolley Madison held the mortgage.Zall, Paul M. Dolley Madison. New York: Nova Publishers, 2001. Her husband's death had left Dolley Madison in a financially difficult position, so to reduce her expenses she took up residence in the house in November 1837. Presidents James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, and Zachary Taylor all visited her in the home, as did John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster. Dolley Madison's financial difficulties continued, however. She also owned Montpelier, her husband's country estate and farm in the Piedmont of Virginia. But Montpelier's finances were in poor condition, and Dolley moved out of the Cutts–Madison House in 1839 to live once more at Montpelier and see if she could save the estate. She rented out the Cutts–Madison house, but was unable to stabilize Montpelier. She moved back to the Cutts–Madison House in 1843, and sold Montpelier in 1844.
In 1844 or 1845, after her return to the Cutts–Madison House, arsonists put lit matches into the shutters in the rear of the house, and Dolley Madison had to be wakened and saved from death by a servant.Madison, Dolley. Memoirs and Letters of Dolly Madison: Wife of James Madison, President of the United States. 2d ed. Lucia Beverly Cutts, ed. New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1887. The fire was quickly put out, and the damage to the building was not extensive — Mrs. Madison returned to her bedroom the same night.
Dolley Madison lived in the house on Lafayette Square until her death on July 12, 1849. Her only surviving child, John Payne Todd (from her first marriage to Quaker lawyer John Todd), inherited the property. On April 3, 1851, Todd sold the house and property to Charles Wilkes.
Charles Wilkes Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes purchased the house in 1851.Washburn, Wilcomb E. The Cosmos Club of Washington: A Centennial History, 1878-1978. Washington, D.C.: The Club, 1978.Symonds, Craig L. Lincoln and His Admirals. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2008. Wilkes moved the entrance from Madison Place NW to H Street NW, and turned the porch on the west side of the house (facing Madison Place NW) into a window. The gable roof (which sloped east and west) was eliminated and a flat roof installed, an outbuilding added at the rear, and a bay window added on the south side. Wilkes also cut all windows on the first floor down so that they now reached the floor.
During the 1850s and 1860s, the house had a number of notable occupants in addition to the Wilkeses. After being named Special Envoy to Central America, Sir William Gore Ouseley rented the house in 1858 on his way to the region and entertained lavishly while living at the Cutts–Madison House.Poore, Benjamin Perley. Perley's Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis. Philadelphia, Pa.: Hubbard Brothers, 1886. General George B. McClellan used the house as his Washington-based headquarters after the First Battle of Bull Run during the Civil War. McClellan first occupied the house on July 26, 1861, and left in late October for new headquarters at a house at the corner of H Street NW and 15th Street NW (where the Sofitel Lafayette Square Hotel now stands). After the Civil War, the Cutts–Madison House was briefly used by the French Claims Commission.
Wilkes mortgaged the house in 1855, and the mortgage passed through several hands over the next 15 years until George B. Warren secured it in 1870. Upon Warren's death in 1880, the mortgage was assigned to his daughter, Phebe Warren Tayloe. She died in 1882, and her niece Elizabeth H. Price came to hold the mortgage. Price sold the mortgage in December 1884 to Edward Tayloe Perry (a minor). Meanwhile, Charles Wilkes deeded the house over to his wife and three daughters in 1870. Wilkes died in 1877, and in 1886 the Wilkes family sold the house to the Cosmos Club for the sum of $40,000 (which sum paid the outstanding mortgage held in trust for Edward Tayloe Perry).
Cosmos Club
The Cosmos Club immediately improved the height of the third floor by raising the roof, and added a large meeting hall by building a single-story extension to the south side of the house (with skylight).
The Cosmos Club made further improvements in 1893. Electricity was installed, the heating system upgraded, and general refurbishing of commons areas completed. Two additional stories were built over the assembly hall: The second story consisting of one large room, and a third story consisting of four meeting rooms. A bathroom was added to the third floor of the old building, above the existing second-floor bathroom. The eastern garden was removed, and a three-story addition built. The addition consisted of a ground floor with an entrance to the building on H Street NW, a cloakroom, and a connecting door to the assembly hall on the south side of the building; a second story with meeting rooms for the Cosmos Club as well as other societies which might use the premises; and a third story with lodgings and a meeting room for the Cosmos Club's board of directors. The basement of the original building was renovated and upgraded to include a kitchen, a bathroom, and an underground passage to the new addition. The goal of building the addition was to permit visiting societies (such as members of the National Geographic Society) to enter and use the building without disturbing members of the Cosmos Club. The total cost of the renovations was $15,000. Hornblower & Marshall were the architects of the addition, which was completed in January 1894.
In 1903, the Cosmos Club purchased from Henry Reed Rathbone for $33,000 No. 25 Madison Place NW, the building immediately to the south of the Cutts–Madison House (against which its three-story assembly hall addition abutted). This property (and the one to the south of it) were razed in 1909, and a five-story Cosmos Club lodging house built.
The Cosmos Club vacated the Cutts–Madison House in 1952 to move to new headquarters in the Townsend Mansion at 2121 Massachusetts Avenue NW, at which time the building was purchased by the U.S. government and used for offices.At least one source incorrectly places the dislocation of the Cosmos Club from the Cutts–Madison House in 1939. See: Bednar, L'Enfant's Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington, 2006, p. 105.
Federal ownership