Harmony Hall: Cultural Landscape Inventory, National Capital Parks- East, National Park Service

McMillen, Frances

Harmony Hall (Reservation 404M) is located in Prince George's County, Maryland at 10511 Livingston Road, Fort Washington. The 65‑acre property is approximately 11 miles south of the United States Capitol and approximately four miles north of Fort Washington Park. Harmony Hall is bordered to the north by the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission's treatment facility and neighboring private property owners. The property is bordered to the south by the Harmony Hall Regional Center and private property owners. Broad Creek borders the property to the west and Livingston Road makes up the eastern border. Harmony Hall was listed on the National Register on June 6, 1980. The nomination lists the area of significance as architecture and the period of significance as 1700‑1799. The period of significance determined by the National Register nomination corresponds with the construction of Harmony Hall. This CLI suggests the site has two periods of significance, 1708 to 1786 and 1929 to 1962. The earlier period encompasses the building of the Harmony Hall and Want Water manor houses and their roles in the tobacco trade. The later period comprises Charles Wallace Collins’ restoration of Harmony Hall and the transformation of the landscape in the twentieth century. Harmony Hall is significant for its role in exploration and settlement along the Potomac River in Prince George’s County. Battersea, the historic name of the patent on which Harmony Hall is located, was a 500‑acre land tract patented in 1662. It was the first patent issued in the Broad Creek area. Harmony Hall is significant for its association with the agricultural history of Prince George’s County and the state of Maryland. During the 1700s, Prince George’s County became the leading tobacco producing county in Maryland. Harmony Hall and Want Water were both tobacco plantations owned by two major landowners of the period. Want Water further participated in tobacco commerce with the establishment of a tobacco inspection warehouse on the property in 1748. Harmony Hall is also significant for its association with Charles Wallace Collins, who purchased the property in 1929. Collins had an influential career in federal service and private sector, but it was the articles and books he published expressing his views on race relations and states’ rights that had the greatest impact on American politics. As the owner of Harmony Hall, he created a landscape which included elements of the Colonial Revival style and the plantations of his native Alabama Harmony Hall is significant for architecture. Harmony Hall is representative of Prince George’s County’s eighteenth century Georgian plantation houses. The seven bay structure laid in Flemish bond retains much of its character and is representative of the construction methods and building styles of the eighteenth century. Harmony Hall is also significant for its Colonial Revival landscape (1929‑1962). Want Water is also significant for its architecture. The house was likely constructed in the early 1700s and is as an example of early Tidewater buildings. Today, only the Flemish bond brick end walls and chimneys remain. This CLI finds that the Harmony Hall cultural landscape retains integrity to the later period of significance, 1929 to 1962, and is in fair condition. Documentation of the landscape during the earlier period of significance does not provide enough information to determine its features. This lack of information, as well as the alteration of the site over time, makes determining integrity to the earlier period difficult. While there have been changes to the property and the loss of some features over time, it still invokes the historic significance of the 1929‑1962 landscape through the integrity of all seven aspects.

Harmony Hall: Cultural Landscape Inventory, National Capital Parks- East, National Park Service

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