Chapter XV
Tudor Place and Congress (31st) Street
LIKE the brightest jewel in its crown of old houses, Tudor Place, now the home of Armistead Peter, junior, sits high and aloof on the heights of Georgetown. Its southern front, shown here, is the one most familiar to everyone, and it is the view that I looked out on every day of my life for more than a score of years from my father's house on Stoddert (Q) Street.
As Mrs. Beverley Kennon, its owner during my youth, was my cousin and had her motherless grandchildren living with her, some of my earliest recollections are of running round and round the old circle of box in front of the north entrance, playing "colors." I never, to this day, smell box that I am not back at Tudor Place and see the cobwebs in the old bushes bright with raindrops, as box, of course, is really fragrant only after rain. Also there were lovely times in the fall when the leaves were being raked up by old John, the colored gardener, who would let us climb on top of the brilliant load in a wheelbarrow with a crate on top of it. Such rides! Old John was a character (and one we loved dearly), not much over five feet tall, with grizzled hair and goatee, and always wearing an apron tied around his waist and a derby hat on his head.
Tudor Place was purchased by Francis Lowndes, one of the prominent tobacco merchants and shippers, in 1794, from Thomas Beall of George who made a large addition to George Town in 1783, called by his name. Mr. Lowndes started to build a mansion, but in 1805 he sold the property to Thomas Peter and his wife, the former Martha Parke Custis.
Thomas Peter
When the Peters moved to their new home in George Town they used the western wing, already built, with its addition on the east, as their home, and the eastern wing was their carriage house and stable. This fact has been proved by finding below the floors the signs of the old stalls, and up in the rafters the corncobs of long ago. I have known people who remembered the old yellow coach which often stood out in the stable yard, and I've been told that if one dug deep enough its cobblestones would still be found.