National Trust Historic   

1785 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington, DC 20036
202-588-6000

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The nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation, established in 1949, is dedicated primarily to saving historic buildings and environments. The 250,000-member organization is headquartered in DC and also has six regional offices, and owns 20 historic sites and house museums. The DC headquarters itself is housed in an historic edifice, the McCormick building, which was designed by Jules Henri De Sibour and originally served as luxury apartment housing. Each 11,000-square-foot apartment occupied an entire floor of the apartment building. As you might imagine, this was costly even years ago. Wealthy residents included Andrew Mellon, of banking and National Gallery of Art fame. The building now is occupied by Trust offices, and no particular accommodations are made for visitors. The Trust puts its exhibition energy instead into the historic sites, of which four are located in the immediate area: Woodrow Wilson House, that president's home in D.C. and now a museum dedicated to him; Decatur House, a great example of federal style architecture in what used to be the residential area of choice for the city's elites; and Woodlawn and Pope Leighey, both in nearby Virginia. - Gwendolyn Bradley