Crystal Heights
 | This article or section is in a state of significant expansion or restructuring. You are welcome to assist in its construction by editing it as well. If this article or section has not been edited in several days, please remove this template. If you are the editor who added this template and you are actively editing, please be sure to replace this template with {{in use}} during the active editing session. Click on the link for template parameters to use.
This article was last edited by APK (talk | contribs) 4 years ago. (Update timer) |
Crystal Heights (also referred to as Crystal City) was a design by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright for a hotel, apartment, and shopping complex in Washington, D.C. The project would have been built on one of the largest remaining undeveloped tracts in the city, known as the Oak Lawn estate or Temple Heights, on the edge of the Adams Morgan and Dupont Circle neighborhoods. The site was bounded by 19th Street, Columbia Road, Connecticut Avenue, and Florida Avenue, all in the northwest quadrant.
One version of the design called for 2,500 hotel rooms, small apartments, parking for 1,500 cars, shops, and a 1,000-seat theater - a diversity of uses almost never seen in structures of the time - all within a complex consisting of a broad base covering the whole site topped by 24 towers. The proposal was defeated primarily by zoning requirements that prevented a multi-purpose structure at the site and forbade towers from rising more than 110 feet. The planned central tower would have been 240 feet high (73 m) and the remaining buildings 14-stories tall. After his design was rejected, Wright heavily criticized local officials and the National Capital Planning Commission. Today, the site is occupied by the Washington Hilton, commercial buildings, and an apartment building.
History
Site history
The land where Crystal Heights was to be built was the remaining portion of a historic estate originally called Widow's Mite, and later Oak Lawn, Dean Estate, and Temple Heights. The property was acquired in 1660 and during the next 200 years, land was sold until the remaining estate was around 10 acres (4 ha), bounded by present-day 19th Street, Columbia Road, Connecticut Avenue, and Florida Avenue. A Federal-style house was built around 1820 on the northern end of the property, just a few yards from the Treaty Oak, where it was said early settlers and members of the local Nacotchtank tribe signed a treaty. The house was later expanded and renovated into a large Second Empire building that overlooked the city.[1][2]
A Masonic group purchased the estate in 1922 with plans to build a large temple complex on the site. The $3,000,000 project would have included temples, an auditorium for 3,000 people, and a large central tower. Despite raising a large amount for the project, the plan was cancelled following the 1929 stock market crash and start of the Great Depression.[2][3][4] A few years later Congress proposed purchasing part of the property and turning it into a public park, but the offer was turned down.[1][5]
Crystal Heights
In 1940 a syndicate led by developer Roy C. Thurman purchased the estate, which at the time was described as "the last great undeveloped piece of property close to the center of the downtown area."[1][5] Thurman hired noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design his massive $12,000,000 project, an early example of a mixed-use development[2] Wright's plans for the U-shaped project, which he called Crystal Heights and later Crystal City, included 14 towers containing a 2,500 room hotel and apartments, a theater, large shopping center, gardens, fountains, and a five-level parking deck facing Florida Avenue. A large open terrace that included the entrance to the hotel would be located on top of the parking deck. Wright chose the name Crystal Heights because of the main building materials he had chosen, glass and white marble.[2][6]
References
- ^ a b c "Beautiful Temple Heights Estate is Center of Historic Washington Section". Evening Star. September 22, 1940. Retrieved October 14, 2020.
- ^ a b c d "From a Bucolic 19th Century Estate to the Hilton & Universal Buildings" (PDF). The InTowner. December 12, 2009. Retrieved October 14, 2020.
- ^ Goode, James M. (2003). Capital Losses: A Cultural History of Washington's Destroyed Buildings. Smithsonian Books. p. 94. ISBN 978-1588341051.
- ^ "Oak Lawn Famed for Treaty Providing Land for District". Evening Star. August 11, 1934. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
{{cite news}}:|archive-date=requires|archive-url=(help) - ^ a b "Temple Heights Option Taken by Syndicate". Evening Star. August 9, 1940. Retrieved October 14, 2020.
- ^ "Wright Designs 'Crystal City' for Temple Heights". Evening Star. September 24, 1940. Retrieved October 14, 2020.
