The family man | German-American Community | Career | City History | Cluss-Buildings | Cluss in the context of the city

William F. Mattingly and Michael W. Beveridge Residences (101)

1616 and 1618 H Street NW
Constructed in 1870, demolished in the 1930s

Cluss designed two brick houses on H Street NW, between Sixteenth and Seventeenth streets, about two blocks from the White House. Although The Evening Star said that the large houses at 1616 and the 1618 "had the appearance of double houses," District of Columbia archives show that 1618 was a little larger than 1616.

Each house included a full basement, two full stories, a mansard roof, and a one-story bay window. The houses each had five bedrooms as well as a parlor, dining room, kitchen and pantries. The Evening Star pointed out "the front draws attention by the novel shape of the bay windows and the grouped second story windows above them." Both houses would have drawn attention also because they were set back twenty feet (6.1 meters) from the building line, not often done in a city with unusually wide streets. Within a year of the construction of the Mattingly/Beveridge houses, Cluss, as District of Columbia Inspector of Public Buildings, wrote new building regulations that encouraged owners to build bays or towers four feet inside the city owned street right-of-ways.

William F. Mattingly was a lawyer, with an office on Seventh Street NW, about two blocks from Cluss's office. Michael W. Beveridge was the co-owner of a retail business on Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, which imported china, glass, crockery, and cutlery. Like Cluss, Beveridge played an active role in local Republican Party politics. In 1881, he served on the Inaugural Ball Committee that Cluss headed.

Both the Mattingly and Beveridge families owned their houses until after 1900. By the 1920s both houses had been divided into apartments. They were demolished in the 1930s.

In the same neighborhood, Cluss also planned other large and elegant residences, the Davidge house (48), in the same block, and Shepherd’s Row (38), two blocks away.

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