Featured Historic Districts
      Introduction
      Logan Circle
      Residential Architecture
      Religious Architecture
      Public Architecture
      Commercial Architecture
      Residents
      Greater 14th St. Area Today
      Logan Circle Comm. Assoc.
      Credits
   Designation Procedures
   and Criteria
   Frequently Asked Questions

Logan Circle

The primary focal point of the neighborhood is Logan Circle, a major element of L'Enfant's 1791 plan of the Federal City, and the only circle in Washington, D.C. that retains its Victorian architecture.

The 136 buildings within the Logan circle Historic District (now incorporated within the Greater Fourteenth Street Historic District) are located on the eight city blocks that front on the circle.

Washington Post reprinted by permission of D.C. Public Library

As late as 1857, Logan Circle was still an open field, and the area immediately surrounding it was only sparsely inhabited. The civic and public improvements that occurred immediately after the Civil War transformed Logan Circle into one of the most fashionable addresses in Washington. Paved in 1873, it was known as Iowa Circle until 1930, when an act of Congress officially changed its name to Logan Circle to honor the memory of General John A. Logan.

The intersection of the city's grid streets and diagonal avenues with the circle created the irregularly shaped building lots that led to the imaginatively designed houses found on Logan Circle. Most of the three- and four-story brick and stone houses were built between 1874 and 1887, when the Second Empire, High Victorian Gothic, and Romanesque Revival styles were in vogue. Although diverse in style, these individually designed rowhouses share a common scale, height, texture, and setback from the street. Together they create an elegant and unique streetscape distinct from the more modest rowhouses built in repeating designs on the adjacent streets.