Suburban Style 38th and Brandywine Streets NW
until 1890 tenleytown was a rural crossroads. Then the electric streetcar arrived, followed by the Permanent Highway Plan. Real estate men promoted new houses at the top of the town: city conveniences, country charm, and great views, with a 25-minute streetcar ride to downtown. Developers Ernest M. Pease and Colorado Senator Thomas M. Patterson snapped up the promising high ground here between the Wisconsin Avenue and Connecticut Avenue streetcar lines. In 1904 they promoted their subdivision, “Colorado Heights,” to middle-income white workers, prom- ising that homes would cost not less than $2,500. At the same time, the Washington Post predicted, “Never again will land anywhere near Connecticut Avenue be sold so cheaply as this.” Despite Tenleytown’s modern amenities – police and fire protection, electric lights, water and sewers – growth dragged until after World War I (1914-1918). Then the Warren brothers bought many of Senator Patterson’s lots. They built three blocks of battleship gray, two-bedroom bunga- lows, many with front porches or sleeping porches. A walk around these blocks is a step back into the 1920s. Note the striking contrast with the upright brick Colonials that came into vogue in the 1940s. In Tenleytown the Permanent Highway Plan took its cues from real estate developers, who had laid a grid over the old picturesque, curving streets. Years of changes to the area have erased portions of Grant Road and other country lanes, renamed others, and added Nebraska Avenue (1930s) and extended Brandywine Street (1950s).
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