Tilden Gardens

Tilden Gardens is a six-building apartment complex in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, DC. Constructed in the 1930s, it was the largest luxury apartment complex of its time.[1] [2]

Tilden Gardens
General information
Town or cityWashington, D.C.
Coordinates38.940291°N 77.062122°W / 38.940291; -77.062122

Tilden Gardens fills the block between Connecticut Avenue, Tilden Street and Sedgwick Street in Cleveland Park.[1] All six buildings center on a three-acre multilevel garden[3] that has been described as the best of its kind in Washington, DC.[4][2]

History

The Tilden Gardens units were originally planned in 1927, as cooperatives (co-ops).[5] However, due to the collapse of the housing market, most of them were not completed until after the Great Depression. The four later buildings' apartments were rented out through the 1930s. In 1935-36 and again in 1939, one apartment was rented to then Senator Harry Truman and his wife.[6]

The first two Tilden Gardens buildings became legally separate cooperatives. By 1939, it became possible for owners to sell apartments again, and the later four buildings were incorporated as a single "Tilden Gardens" co-op.

Description

Counting all six buildings, Tilden Gardens has 210 apartments, of which 170 are in the "Tilden Gardens" co-op as such. The later buildings were modified to include fewer large apartments and more one-bedroom apartments, in recognition of Depression economics.

Three of the original six buildings have an X shape and three have an H shape, After the designs had been approved, the developer decided to rotate and combine the F and G buildings. The resulting structure (still known as the F/G building) ended up with the oddity of two identical front doors a few feet apart.

The Tilden Gardens buildings have custom-made brick with limestone trim. The architecture has been described as Tudor Revival and i Art Deco All the apartments have at least two exposures, and many have three.[7]

Notable tenants

References
  1. "Welcome to Tilden Gardens". www.tildengardens.org. Retrieved 2018-11-14.
  2. Cavanaugh, Stephanie (August 28, 2004). "Tilden Gardens Embraces Anachronism". The Washington Post.
  3. "The Gardens at Tilden Gardens". www.tildengardens.org. Retrieved 2018-11-14.
  4. M., Goode, James (1988). Best addresses : a century of Washington's distinguished apartment houses. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 0874744768. OCLC 17650523.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. Williams, Paul K.; Higgins, Kelton C. (2003). Cleveland Park. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9780738515212.
  6. Truman, Harry S. (2018-01-17). 1945: Year of Decision. New Word City. ISBN 9781612308074.
  7. "Tilden Gardens - Our History". www.tildengardens.org. Retrieved 2018-11-14.
  8. Smith, Jean Edward (1990). Lucius D. Clay: An American Life. Macmillan. ISBN 9780805009996.
  9. Striner, Richard; Blair, Melissa (2014). Washington and Baltimore Art Deco: A Design History of Neighboring Cities. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 204. ISBN 978-1-42-141162-0. OCLC 844373062. OL 26120936M. Retrieved September 19, 2019.
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