Location

Standing on the heights of Georgetown for almost two centuries, this fine Federal-period house showcases period furniture and decorative arts of the late-18th and early-19th centuries. From the library to the dining room, through the music room to the parlor to the bedrooms upstairs, visitors to Dumbarton House today see a wealth of furniture, paintings, textiles, silver, and ceramics that were made and used in the republic's formative years.
The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America, headquartered here, purchased the house in 1928 and restored it to its early 19th-century character with the help of local architect Horace W. Peaslee and architectural historian Fiske Kimball. Changing the house's name to "Dumbarton House," The National Society opened the house to the public in 1932.

Built high on land above Rock Creek in 1800, Dumbarton House was the home to Joseph Nourse, first Register of the U.S. Treasury, until 1813. Bought and renamed "Belle Vue" by Charles Carroll, the house would host Dolley Madison on August 24, 1814, during her flight from the White House and British invaders. In 1915 when the Dumbarton ("Q Street") Bridge was built over Rock Creek, the house was moved 100 feet to its present site, to allow the extension of Q Street into Georgetown.

Today Dumbarton House is one of the few stately brick homes in Washington to survive the heady days when the country and its capital were new. The design of the house reflects the shift from Georgian tradition to the Adamesque Federal Style that would take hold as the new republic defined itself.