History of the
2010 DC Design House
3911 Bradley Lane
Chevy Chase, MD 20815
"Wirelawn"
The home located at 3911 Bradley Lane, Chevy Chase, Maryland is the site of the 2010 DC Design House to benefit Children's National Medical Center. This grand country house was built in 1905 for Mr. and Mrs. Worthington Ford as a small stucco home on land purchased from the Chevy Chase Land Company. In June of 1910, Mr. and Mrs. John Ryan Devereux purchased the home from the Fords to live in, along with their ten children. In her memoirs, Mrs. Devereux noted that Mr. Ford had been a well-read scholar and that the largest room in the stucco house had been his library.
Architect Clark Waggaman was commissioned by the Devereux family to design an expansion of the house that included two new wings, as well as a dark-red brick facade that encompassed the new wings and the original house. The ballroom was added, four steps lower than the entrance hall, and a small raised platform stood at one end, which the Devereux family used for visiting lecturers. Dr. Devereux himself was a lecturer, teacher and physician, serving in World War I as an aide to the famous Army physician Walter Reed. Mrs. Devereux organized a corps of 40 women who made sheets and pillowcases for the troops at their home, and Dr. Devereux served in the Ambulance Corps in Europe, alongside their son Joseph. Their son James was a war hero in the battle of Wake Island in World War II, a brigadier general in the U.S. Marine Corps, and later, a U.S. Congressman from the second district of Maryland.
In 1924, the Devereux family also landscaped the gardens when they acquired additional land surrounding the house. The family owned three ponies, named Highflyer, Mingo and Dynamite, who all lived in the horse stables behind the house, now the garage. "The children won almost every race they entered," Mrs. Devereux commented, and some of the older children went fox hunting in nearby Rock Creek Park. One son received his driver's license at age ten, since there was no age requirement for driving in those days. Chevy Chase was considered a rural area outside of the city, until the Taft Bridge was built across Rock Creek Park and trolley cars began to run up and down Connecticut Avenue.
In the mid-1920s, Anne and Mary Devereux each made their debuts at the house, and in 1929 Mary was married in the garden at the home, near the pond. The ceremony was held under the brick archway at the far side. According to the Chevy Chase Historical Society, President Harry S Truman's inaugural ball was held in the ballroom of the house in 1945.
In August of 1946, Mr. and Mrs. C. Raymond Wire purchased the home from the Devereux family (Anne Devereux still lives next door to the home) and named the mansion "Wirelawn." The Wires had twin daughters, Rosemary and Ramona, who grew up in the house. The family's ranch in Texas, the Double-R Ranch, was named for the girls.
The Wires were very active Democrats from Texas. Mrs. Wire, nee Minnie Lee Williams Wire, travelled to Washington to attend the Inaugural parade for Harry S Truman in 1945 -- we don't know if she attended the ball at the home -- and after they moved in, the Wires continued to be active in Texas politics. Senator Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird were friends of theirs and frequent visitors to the home. Texas Congressman and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn was a guest in the home, as was Guinn "Big Boy" Williams. A relative of Mrs. Wire who was a Western movie actor, Williams was given the name "Big Boy" by Will Rogers, with whom he appeared in fifteen Western films. Williams went on to appear in Santa Fe Trail with Errol Flynn and The Alamo with John Wayne.
The Wires hosted many recitals, teas, fashion shows, diplomatic receptions and formal parties over the years, including one soiree at which a horse was posed for photos with his head through the front door. It was a 1950 Texas State Society event at Constitution Hall that brought a group of Texas Congressmen in full costume to the house to first practice their square-dancing before the performance (we have photos of that too) out in front of the house. The Wires hosted many political gatherings, including a pre-ball Inauguration reception the evening of President Eisenhower's swearing-in, to which Mrs. Wire wore a spectacular gown that was custom-made for her by the family's seamstress. The third floor of the house was converted into a dressmaker's studio, with an area for designing creations, shelves for bolt upon bolt of fabric, and an entire wall of spools of colored thread. Unfortunately we do not have photos of the dressmaker's studio, although we do of Minnie Lee posing in that gown with Sam Rayburn.
Over the years, other visitors to Wirelawn included Pat Nixon, wife of the Vice President (to kick off the President's Cup regatta, chaired by the Eisenhowers, photos show Mrs. Nixon breaking a mini champagne bottle on the bow of a model boat in the pond). Marian Anderson, the legendary opera star, came out of retirement to attend the opening night gala of the 1974 Decorator Showhouse to benefit the National Symphony Orchestra, where her nephew was associate conductor. (We have a photo of Mrs. Wire and Ms. Anderson.)
Among other black-tie events, the twins' debutante ball was held at Wirelawn, with a crowd of several hundred that included famed Washington socialite Pearl Mesta. (Many photos.)
The circular drive was a later addition to the house; at one point the Wires had a combined driveway with their rear neighbors, running right through the garage, linking Bradley Lane and Rosemary Street to the rear. Guests could depart in either direction. When the girls were younger, the outbuilding still served as a stable for ponies; later it became the garage.
Upon entering the front door of the house, you will find a huge mirror in the front hall to the right. The mirror appears in a 1948 photo which we have of the twins in the "Victorian room" of the house, with the girls wearing old-fashioned pantaloons.
The room to the right of the front hall originally contained two giant glass curio cases, which Minnie Lee kept filled with family treasures. The current owners of the house, the Wilders, used this room as a music room for their children's piano-playing. As you continue through that small room, you arrive in what was used most recently as a formal living room but which originally was a stately dining room. When the house was featured as the 1974 National Symphony Orchestra Decorator Showhouse, it was used as a dining room.
Still further is a solarium, which was draped with fabric to resemble an Arabian tent for the 1974 Showhouse. On a related note, when that 1974 Showhouse took place, all of the radiators in the house were removed for aesthetic reasons and then put back in place after the Showhouse ended.
Returning back to that original dining room, it leads to a smaller room once used as a family breakfast room off the butler's pantry. (Notice the cut-out in the swinging door for servants to observe the pace of the meal and not interrupt guests.) The current owners used this as their main dining room.
Leaving the dining room, we arrive at the grand staircase. We have a portrait of Miss Rosemary Wire on her wedding day in a beautiful bridal gown (again, made by the family seamstress), posed on the stairs with the train of the dress arranged down the staircase. Her wedding, to Mr. William Anderson, was held in the side garden, near the pond. (We have photos of the bride being walked down "the aisle" by her father.) Mr. Anderson told us after the wedding that a burglar broke into the house, apparently to steal wedding presents, but was caught mid-burglary by someone. He climbed out a second-floor window and jumped off the top of the porch on the side of the house, apparently breaking his ankle. He didn't end up taking anything, and he was never caught.
To the right is the kitchen and the stairs to the cellar. For many years, the basement was not finished as it was the location of the coal bin where coal was shoveled into the giant furnace. Later, in 1977 the Wires rented the home to Ambassador of Mauritius as his official residence, and later to a group of Chinese exporters. The Chinese tenants installed a rather primitive kitchen in the basement that contained a large wok for cooking. The wok was later removed. (We have photos of the old basement kitchen.)
Proceeding through the foyer to the first room on the right, this room originally had a big picture window looking out into the yard (the pool was added by later owners; the picture window was replaced with french doors.) The walls of this room were decorated with a panoramic scene on wallpaper in the style of the famous French muralists Zuber & Cie, and the scene was a hand-painted pastoral view of the Wire family's farm, "The Shade," located in Washington, Virginia.
Finally, we come to the large room along the left side of the house which opens to a porch. The Wires used this as their main living room; the current owners used it only for entertaining large parties. At one point, the family farm had lambs whose mother was not taking care of them; the Wires had the lambs brought to the house to live for a short time underneath that porch, which was open underneath. Rosemary and Ramona fed the lambs and played with them until they began to thrive, and then the lambs returned to the farm.
The Wires put the house on the market when it was the NSO Showhouse in 1974, for a price of $350,000. Soon afterward they entered into an agreement with a local businessman who sought to buy it, but the contract fell through when he lost his financing. They rented the house for a number of years to several tenants. In 1994, the home was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Christmas and soon afterward was the site of the Chevy Chase Historical Society annual gala, as it is again this year. The current owners are Robin and Rob Wilder, and the house is again for sale.
Special thanks to Rob & Robin Wilder for allowing their special home to be the host site of the 2010 DC Design House to benefit Children's National Medical Center.