ANDERSON HOUSE WAS CRAFTED BETWEEN 1902 AND 1905 in the heart of Embassy Row, near Dupont Circle—Washington, D.C.’s most fashionable neighborhood during the Gilded Age. The Boston firm of Arthur Little & Herbert Browne designed this Beaux-Arts mansion as the winter home of American diplomat Larz Anderson and his wife, Isabel. The Andersons entertained American and foreign dignitaries and Washington’s high society with grandeur. During the social season, the Andersons hosted diplomatic and inaugural receptions, formal dinners and luncheons, concerts, and performances of plays and musicals. The fifty-room mansion is considered to be Little & Browne’s finest architectural achievement. Its eclectic interiors, dominated by English and Italian influences, feature carved wood walls, murals, gilded papier-mâché ceilings, ornate iron work, and intricate marble floors. The furnishings of this stately home consisted of elegant antiques from around the world, as well as museum quality paintings, sculpture, ceramics, books and ‘objets du jour’ that reflected the couple’s interest and good taste in trends of the era.
