Montrose Park: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Rock Creek Park - Montrose Park, National Park Service

Joseph, Maureen

Montrose Park (U.S. Reservation #324) is a sixteen-acre park located on the heights overlooking Georgetown. It is bordered on the south by R Street and a residential area; on the west by the richly designed landscape of Dumbarton Oaks Gardens (masterpiece of Landscape Architect, Beatrix Farrand); on the north by a forested tributary property for Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway (U.S. Reservation 360); and on the east by the rolling rural landscape of Oak Hill Cemetery. Some of the unique features of Montrose Park originated during the period when the property was a prominent estate from 1804-1911. They include the Ropewalk, Summerhouse, Boxwood Gardens, and several mature canopy trees along the edge of the plateau. When Montrose Park was purchased by the United States Government in 1911, it became a public park, and the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds (OPBG) assumed the responsibility for transforming the property. Together, OPBG landscape architects George Burnap and Horace Peaslee prepared designs for the park that integrated features from the former estate’s landscape and incorporated new elements for public park use. Management of the park was transferred to the National Park Service (NPS) in 1933. In 1967 Montrose Park was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of a joint designation with Dumbarton Oaks Park. The NPS went on to complete a Cultural Landscape Report (CLR) in 2004, which was followed by the listing and acceptance of the individual National Register documentation of Montrose Park in 2007. There are two periods of significance, 1804-1911 and 1911-1919. The first period includes the year 1804, when the Ropewalk was initially established by Richard Parrott, and extends to 1911, encompassing the period when this property was developed into a unique estate. The second period directly follows the first, and includes the formative development years of Montrose Park. During the second period, landscape architects from the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds incorporated elements of the estate era into an early twentieth-century public park for the Georgetown community. The second period of significance ends in 1919, a date which differs from the approved National Register nomination. This end date was chosen because it marks the termination of the formative development of Montrose Park, when the property reached its most fully conceived landscape character and the period to which it is largely intact today. Changes made after this point were few, and without apparent plans or logic. The only physical developments evident in Montrose Park since the second period of significance are the following: the addition of a tennis court and reorientation of the Ropewalk tennis court (1925); the addition of an asphalt path from the Summerhouse to the Circle (c. 1935); the installation of the Sarah Louisa Rittenhouse Memorial (1956); and installation of a contemporary play area (2001). Montrose Park retains integrity for its two periods of significance, 1804-1911 and 1911-1919. The landscape has been altered slightly by the changes implemented in 1925, c. 1935, 1956, and 2001. Even with these changes, however, the property still represents a nineteenth-century estate that was gracefully transformed into an early twentieth-century public park.

Montrose Park: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Rock Creek Park - Montrose Park, National Park Service

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