Tracing the Origin Of Spaces

Subsequent permits, also on file, revealed the house's carriage house, now the fifth condo, was built in 1904 as servants' quarters. The pieces of the house's history were starting to fall into place.

To find out who Manney was, Williams went to the city directory, also available on microfilm in the Washingtoniana room. City directories, available in many urban areas, list residents, not necessarily owners; some people listed may be renters. Some directories are organized by street as well as by last name. They often give residents' occupations, which can point to other resources.

Manney's listing revealed he was in the Navy. So Williams went to military Web sites, where he learned that Manney became a captain and later moved to San Diego -- without Anteinetta, from whom he had apparently been divorced. He eventually became a city councilman there.

Continuing his research in the Washingtoniana room, Williams went to census reports. These show the number of people in every house; their names, ages and relationships; whether servants lived on the property or whether there was a mortgage on the house; and so on. "All the names that you can just get out of a directory sort of come to life," Williams said.

To find data on a particular property, he said, the researcher needs to identify it on census maps. (The 1930 census is the most recent one for which personal data is available; for privacy reasons, the federal government does not make specific data public until 72 years after it is collected.) The maps, which divide the District into enumeration districts, are old and sometimes hard to read, so some guesswork may be required to find the right roll of microfilm containing the census report.

Other maps also help in piecing together a sense of the building's occupants and use. Available at Washingtoniana, and many historical agencies, are maps that the Sanborn Fire Insurance Co. began publishing in the mid-19th century. Because the company was trying to determine and document the risk of fire, these maps noted how close structures were to one another, what materials they were built from, and what they might be likely to contain. These maps can sometimes also be found online, often through university or local libraries.

Property deeds, at the Recorder of Deeds, at 515 D St. NW, showed transfers of property. Histories and biographies in the library stacks fleshed out the picture.

Eventually, Williams learned that the 16th Street house was sold in 1896, to Mr. and Mrs. John C. O'Donnell. O'Donnell had no job listing and may have been retired. In 1917 a steam heating system was installed. The carriage house, behind the main building, was home to three or four servants over the years. By 1920, the house was being rented. One tenant was the Count de Chambrun, a French colonel and descendant of Revolutionary War hero Gen. Marquis de Lafayette who was serving as a legal adviser in the French Embassy.

At some point -- probably during World War II, when Washington was flooded with government workers seeking temporary housing -- the house was turned into a boardinghouse. "It was kind of your patriotic duty to take your big house and convert it," Williams said. In 1978, it became an apartment building. And then it went condo.

* * *

Unlike the case with the 16th Street houses, an initial walk through 2035 13th Street revealed many clues to the building's past.

For example, Williams could tell the whole block was built in groups of three to five houses because the pattern of the brick facade indicates the bricks were laid across several buildings at a time.