The General's Gem

A Tiny Nod to Bradley Remains at D.C. Estate

The evidence of where the great once lived can come down to some peeling wallpaper in an upstairs room.

A Spring Valley house that belonged to World War II five-star Gen. Omar Nelson Bradley is on the market for $6.9 million, but there are few traces of the more than a decade he spent there. The house has been expanded, renovated and redecorated since he moved out in 1968. Current neighbors have no tales to tell.

However, former owner Hynda Brody Dalton, who bought the house in 1980, preserved a yellowing piece of wallpaper inside a cabinet in a third-floor room that once served as the general's office. It has World War II-specific pictures of battleships and a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber escorted by a fighter plane. Red, white and blue stars surround the scene. Subsequent owners have left it there.

"I kept the wallpaper there as homage to Bradley," Dalton said.

Bradley, often called "the GIs' general," commanded forces in North Africa and Europe in World War II and was promoted above Gen. George Patton, then his commanding officer. He came to Washington after the war to head the Veterans Administration and was recognized for improving health care and education benefits under the GI Bill. In 1948, he was made Army chief of staff, and in 1949, he became the first official chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He stepped down from active duty in 1953. He and his first wife, Mary Quayle Bradley, bought the half-acre wooded estate in 1957, according to a title search.

In 1958, he became chairman of Bulova, the watchmaker. That might sound like an unusual transition for a former general, but Bulova had been supplying technicians and products to the U.S. military throughout World War II.

Bradley served as a consultant on the Oscar-winning 1970 film "Patton," in which he was portrayed by Karl Malden.

The Colonial house was built in 1931 by W.C. & A.N. Miller. Its understated stone and clapboard facade masks what's now an almost 12,000-square-foot interior, which includes a grand 30-foot long entrance hall with an elegant curved staircase. There are seven bedrooms, 6 1/2 baths and four fireplaces.

Dalton, who lives on Maryland's Eastern Shore, bought the home about 12 years after Bradley sold it and a year before he died. "Most of the interior was painted Army green," she recalled.

She extensively renovated and expanded the house, almost doubling its original size. An indoor pool where the general and wife took their regular exercise became the foundation of the family room. It has a fireplace, a cathedral ceiling and many windows to view the newer pool, a spacious cabana and lush landscaping in the back yard.

The home has been enhanced over the years and includes random-width hardwood floors in the foyer and main hall with stenciled details along the perimeter. Faux finishing along the baseboards beneath the wainscoting on the first and second levels resembles burled walnut. Green marble around the fireplace in the wood-paneled study has also been replicated around the base of the walls.