Qualla: Old Stone House (Washington, D.C.)

Old Stone House (Washington, D.C.): Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit E.B. Thompson, Public domain. For nearly two centuries, locals believed George Washington had used the Old Stone House at 3051 M Street as his headquarters in Georgetown. The story was passed down through generations of Washingtonians, posted on a sign over the front door, and used as justification for keeping the building standing while the rest of the original colonial fabric of Georgetown was torn down and replaced with brick rowhouses, then storefronts, then commercial blocks. When the National Park Service acquired the building in 1953 and began researching its history, they discovered that the story was wrong. George Washington had never used the house. He and Pierre L'Enfant had actually held their early planning meetings at Suter's Tavern, four blocks west. By the time the Park Service learned the truth, however, they already owned the building. The folklore had done its work. The Old Stone House survived. It is now the only pre-Revolutionary colonial structure left standing in Washington.

Image: E.B. Thompson | Public domain

Old Stone House (Washington, D.C.): Christopher Layman's House

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Something Original (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1764, Christopher and Rachel Layman bought Lot Three in Georgetown's commercial district for £1 10 shillings. The lot faced Bridge Street - the road that would later be renamed M Street. The Laymans built a simple one-room stone house in 1765, with walls two to three feet thic...

Image: Something Original (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Old Stone House (Washington, D.C.): Suter's Tavern, Not the Stone House

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NPS Photo, Public domain. The folklore that protected the building was based on a real but misidentified historical event. In March 1791, George Washington and city designer Pierre L'Enfant met with the local landowners of what would become the federal district to negotiate the terms under which the new c...

Image: NPS Photo | Public domain

Old Stone House (Washington, D.C.): Hatters, Tailors, Locksmiths

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NPS Photo, Public domain. Through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the building cycled through commercial uses that reflected the changing economy of Georgetown - a hat shop, a tailor, a locksmith, a clockmaker, a house roofer, a house painter, various small commercial tenants. The Layman-Che...

Image: NPS Photo | Public domain

Old Stone House (Washington, D.C.): Surviving the Folklore

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit APK, CC BY-SA 4.0. When NPS historians researched the building during the 1950s and 1960s, they conclusively established that Washington had never used the house and that the Suter's Tavern story was the correct one. The folklore that had justified preserving the building was false. But by then the...

Image: APK | CC BY-SA 4.0

Old Stone House (Washington, D.C.): What Vernacular Architecture Looks Like

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NPS Photo, Public domain. The building has no grand architectural pretensions. It was built by a Pennsylvania-German immigrant family for their own use, then expanded by a widow who needed more space, then modified to satisfy a property line dispute. The result is an example of what architectural historia...

Image: NPS Photo | Public domain