The original plan for Washington called for a triangular shaped area called Iowa Circle, with grand diagonal avenues forming an inverted pyramid with the White House. Until just before the Civil War, much of this area was farmland, known derisively as Blodget's Wilderness. In the 1860s, contrabanders and freedmen crowded into wooden shacks on the land. The open field that is now Logan's Circle was infamous as the place where spies and deserters were hanged.
Towards the war's end, however, a horse car "trolley" line brought prosperity to the area, and a number of fashionable addresses. Most of Logan Circle's three- and four-story brick and stone townhouses were built between 1874 and 1887, in styles ranging from Second Empire to High Victorian Gothic and Romanesque Revival. In the late 19th century, Logan Circle was also known as an automobile mecca, and today it still supports a number of car repair shops and small dealerships.
As fortunes were amassed in post-Civil War Reconstruction, many of Logan Circle 's well-heeled residents moved on to nearby DuPont Circle. By the turn of the 20th century, though, Logan Circle was known as the social, intellectual, and artistic core of Black Washington. Mary Jane Patterson, the first African-American woman in the world to earn a college degree, moved to Logan Circle in the early 1890s. Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), frequently used her Logan Circle house as the group's headquarters during the 1920s and '30s . Her home is still maintained as a local landmark.
Williams Home
Around Logan Circle are numerous beautiful residences, re-created from what were once university buildings, lodge halls, and even chapels. Paul Williams, a professional house historian, lives in a home with a checkered and fascinating history.
In 1879 as a single-family home, it was a boarding house when Williams bought it. Before that, Frelinghuysen University owned the place and used it as vocational school for working-class blacks. Williams has been restoring the home incrementally since 1992. Earlier owners had taken out a lot of the plasterwork and some of the doors, while other doors had been damaged. For the restoration, Williams used vintage materials such as heavy molding to give the place a period feel. He also opened up space for an atrium between his living room and kitchen, which is still in the basement.
Rivas-Camp Home
The Logan Circle home owned by Rolando Rivas-Camp was once a convent chapel, part of a complex started in 1929--the first African-American Catholic church in Washington , D.C. Rivas-Camp's home was converted to a residential space during the 1980s. Since he bought the home, he has made subtle changes to the space while being respectful of the building's history. He designed the lighting himself, added a loft space above the first floor, and opened the floor where there had once been an altar. One challenge was the small space that served as a kitchen, where Rivas-Camp used very simple, custom -made cabinets and added mirrors for a back splash, to give the appearance of more space.
Korpon Home
Just a few blocks from Rivas-Camp's home is Eric Korpon's, also descended from a church. Korpon purchased the Victorian rowhouse on 12th Street in 1978, and spent 16 years restoring it. A previous owner had removed all the woodwork from the interior walls, and Korpon had to have quite a bit of wood customized to match the original moldings. Only one archway, between the back parlor and the dining room, has survived from the original. Korpon did enlarge some rooms to make them more functional, but by and large the restored building looks much as it did when it was built in the late 1860s.
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