Chapman Stables
The Chapman Coal Company Garage and Stable was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. Originally designed by designed Nicholas T. Haller in 1903, the building has been comprehensively redeveloped five times in its one hundred and seventy year history. Prior to being adaptively reused as a one hundred and fourteen unit housing community in 2018, the building has seen stints as a coal sales office, horse stable, car garage and cardboard box factory.
Located in Truxton Circle neighborhood of Washington DC, the current restoration defines the community with a celebration of the history of this pragmatic American structure. Placed on the National Register to preserve its ability to convey the distinctive characteristics and broad patterns of early twentieth century life in Washington, DC, the Chapman Coal Company Garage and Stable is a local landmark.
Chapman Stables is located in the neighborhood of Truxton Circle, bordered by Rhode Island Avenue, Florida Avenue, New York and New Jersey Avenue in northwest DC. Named after a military officer Thomas Truxtun (or Truxton), he was one of the first six commanders appointed to the new US Navy by President Washington.
What is not there, however, is the original traffic circle from where the Truxton Circle’s name is derived. Truxton Circle was constructed in 1900 at the intersection of Florida Avenue and North Capitol Street. The circle was demolished in 1947 when North Capitol Street was widened to facilitate commuters moving in and out of the city – but the name remained.
At left, the 1901 Truxton Circle traffic circle and fountain were demolished in 1940 to aid commuter traffic.
Truxton Circle is rich with important late 19th-century houses and historical schools, including Armstrong Manual Training School, where Duke Ellington graduated, and other historical schools such as John Fox Slater Elementary School, and the Margaret Murray Washington School buildings – all of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In the 1940s, the overwhelming majority of households were single-parent families. Graduates of Dunbar High School began to change the community demographics as the Dunbar graduates went to college and returned to the neighborhood with higher paying jobs. Because of the neighborhood’s fine schools, including Dunbar High School, Truxton Circle found itself inundated with children returning home in the 1950’s with college degrees and higher paying jobs. A new upper-middle class was established and the Truxton Circle neighborhood became the most fortunate African American neighborhood, not just in the city, but in the country.
With such a unique history, it was natural that the building be nominated for protection under the National Historic Preservation Act – a mandate which acknowledges the importance of protecting our nation’s heritage. Reflecting the nature of its many uses over the years, the Chapman Coal Company Garage and Stable was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.
The Chapman Coal Company is neither the work of an architectural master nor does its architecture possess high artistic value, but rather it is accepted to the National Register as a record of the history recorded in its uses. As opposed to architectural merit, the Chapman Coal Company Garage and Stable is listed on the Registry due it the building possessing these qualities:
1. inherent association with events that made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of history,
2. embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period or method of construction,
3. represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction
Throughout the renovation, architectural elements provide visual and tactile reminders of the neighborhood’s economic and cultural vitality in the early twentieth century. This latest adaptive reuse carefully preserves these historic elements that help define an identity and sense of place by interweaving historical context and modern redevelopment.
1903 – 1912
With its roots in America’s Industrial Age, the original Chapman Coal Company Garage and Stable site is attributed to local businessman and established coal dealer J. Edward Chapman. The Chapman Coal Yard was an evolving light industrial complex; beginning with a small, one-story brick building situated on three quarters of an acre of land in 1903, expanding to several sizable lots into a coal yard with stable buildings on N Street.
Chapman sold low grade lignite coal to his neighbors that he mined in his backyard. by 1908, lignite coals were being replaced with more efficient energy sources and Chapman needed a new business venture. In 1908, he hired architect Nicholas T. Haller and placed a horse stable in the coal yard.
When a catastrophic fire damaged the horse stable in 1910, the complex underwent a transition to a commercial garage and workshop to better serve the ever-increasing number of automobiles. The new garage was designed by local architect Albert S. J. Atkinson. In what was likely a cost savings measure, remnants of both the horse stable and coal yard buildings were incorporated into this new structure.
1912-2018
The 1912 garage was a long, two-story structure that extended 185 feet from the alley on the east to the side wall of a two-story row house on the west. With a capacity to serve seventy-five cars, a long-two-story garage extending one hundred and eighty-five feet emerged. Heavy cast iron framing was covered with mesh and concrete, creating what at the time as a fire-proof building. No doubt the fireproof construction was Chapman’s response to the fire that had taken the stable structure several years earlier. Newspapers of the time bemoaned the loss of over forty horses in the stable fire.
The main entry to the building was located off-center of the overall elevation and featured an elevator that was used to carry cars from the street to the second floor repair shop. An enclosure covering the elevator hoist and cabling projected above the roofline and helped to define the location of the entry on N Street.
Sometime before 1924, the paper box factory along the rear alley was expanded to occupy the full length of the site. By 1952, the paper box factory had been converted to bus storage depot and Chapman’s Garage was serving duty as a warehouse and light industrial factory.
In 2013, the Chapman Coal Company Garage and Stable was nominated and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The construction of Chapman Stables Housing’s latest adaptive reuse of the property began in 2018.
A rare, antique circa 1893 aqua colored bottle from the defunct Charles Jacobsen Arlington Bottling Co. was found during excavation
Stable Ghosts
The 1908 two-story stable was situated behind the garage structure and was identifiable along the alleyway by a hay loft door architectural ghost (a trace or remnant of structures that no longer exist) telling its story of the building’s original use. Similarly, the N Street facade of the garage had irregular brickwork architectural ghosts indicating the locations of the 1906 coal offices and other small buildings that were incorporated into the car garage when it was constructed. The stable facade is obscured by a concrete block wall in this photograph.
The second story was characteristic of a city stable in 1908. A second-story hayloft opening was centered on the wall and while the hardware was no longer intact, an opening in the wall that housed the block (for the block and tackle) was readily apparent. A corbelled brick cornice rose above the hayloft indicating the original roofline of the stable. A brick wall extended above the cornice, enclosing the roof of the stable which was raised when it was incorporated into the garage.
A Barn for Cars
In 1912, you could both park and get your Model-T serviced at the Chapman Coal Company Garage. On the interior of the ground floor, the building is divided longitudinally into three parallel sections. Along N street facade were front shop rooms for repairs and servicing. The central open space provided unencumbered parking for cars and the third section was occupied by the former horse stable.
The stable, a long and open space, may have continued to serve as a stable after construction of the garage, or, it may have been reused for storage or repair facilities. The rear space section of the garage, which likely served as the automobile storage area, was entirely open with a concrete ceiling supported by concrete columns and beams on concrete floors.
The front shops were divided from the garage parking area by metal sash windows, allowing natural light into the workspace. A line of structural concrete columns divides the end of the 1912 building from the 1908 stable forming the back wall. The upstairs is similarly arranged with work rooms in the front having the large arched windows, and work rooms at the rear lit by large monitor roof skylights.
The original building was a mix of different structural systems of load bearing multi-wythe brick walls in the coal yard houses and stable, and concrete covered steel carrying terracotta floors and roofs. This continued with new work where wood was once again used to construct the light monitors, load-bearing steel framing to carry the concrete slabs of the addition.
The N Street Facade
The N Street facade is divided roughly into nine bays, marked by brackets in the cornice, and each bay featuring three arched window openings on the second story. The third bay – they only bay that does not feature arched openings – was and remains the primary entrance to the building.
The left, western most, bay consists of three arched windows on the second story above a large segmental-arched door and segmental arched window in the first story. The segmental arches on both the door and window are formed by two rows of header bricks. The second bay from the west consists of a grouping of three arched windows at the second story and a large double door and a smaller window on the first story. The window features a segmental-arched header, while the double door has a flat wooden beam across the opening.
Altered brickwork and the length of the beam indicate that the original entry was larger than the current one.
Similarly, the irregular brickwork reveals that the first floor walls of these two western bays remain from an earlier building on the site.
The first floor of this third bay consisted of two entrance doors – the larger, western one had a metal replacement door and a wrought iron canopy over it. This door originally led directly into the elevator and enabled cars to move up to the second floor for service. The single pedestrian opening was converted into a window. The second floor of the eighth bay has a single round arched window and a second, wider window with pairs of wood sash. The first floor contained a single, segmental arched window, and a wide, roll-up door opening with a three-part, multi-light transom above. The segmental arched window featured a double row of header bricks and a stone sill. The second story single pedestrian entrance was served by an wrought iron stair with landing.
The first floor windows had historic flagstone lintels and sills. The western most window is partially blocked by the fire stair leading to the second floor door. The eighth and ninth bays incorporate the walls of the original coal sales buildings.
Activating Hanover Place Alley and Revitalizing the Urban Block
The demolition of the paper box factory at the rear of the site left a derelict and vacant lot fronting the Hanover Place alley at the rear of the site. On a larger urban scale, the ability to repopulate this alley space with residents allowed us to redefine the identify and sense of place of the Truxton Circle community.
On the scale of the City, it allows the reestablishment of the grid; extending Hanover Place another block and activating the neighborhood with a new building that defines place, interweaving value and modern redevelopment
Historic Preservation Review
The District of Columbia’s Historic Preservation Review Board, (HPRB), is the government body that advises design standards and guidelines to review construction affecting historic properties. This Board covers such issues as rhythm, massing, proportion, scale, orientation, height, color, materials and ornamentation, setbacks and additions.
The HPRB’s guidelines call for the retention of character-defining features and as such, additions and alterations are under scrutiny. The Chapman Stables project, both the historic renovation and new addition, were subject to review and approval of the Historic Preservation Review Board.
During the hearings, it was determined that the following architectural details possessed significant historical value and should be retained:
Wrought iron staircase: the original staircase that lead from N Street to the second floor workspaces;
Car elevator: the elevator that carried the Model-T cars to the second floor service bays;
Terrazzo: flooring that was installed at the car service work bays
In addition to these specific historical elements, the design team identified several larger objectives that would allow the design to embrace and celebrate this unique historic resource. Those design objectives included restoring the N Street and alley facades by replacing all damaged, missing original windows. Expressing the new main building entry at the location of the original, returning an open space at the center of the complex, respecting the historic buildings volume, integrating the addition to the historic building by setting it back from the the N Street and alley facades.
Wrought Iron Staircase
Allusions to the past are an essential component of the nature of the place. They make the past tangible by attaching material references to our nostalgia. The wrought stairs here were removed from the building and carefully restored by a local craftsman. After 12 months they were returned and reinstalled.
In the main lobby, new finishes were peeled back to reveal the original structure.
Car Elevator
The two and a half story entrance lobby to Chapman Stables is situated within the historic shaft that served the automobile elevator.
The automobile elevator lifted the Ford Model-T and other vehicles from N Street to their service bays on the second floor.
As part of the preservation efforts, historic elements such as the original counterweights and pulleys are left exposed. The wrought iron is clear finished leaving the patinaed rust of time exposed.
At this entrance, the floor finish is detailed to suggest a bridge through the historic elevator. The bridge repeats at the glazed connection between the historic building and the new construction. The elevator space frames the first instance of major horizontal (through to the courtyard) and vertical (second floor overlook) connections through the buildings.
Seating area showing existing beams and existing brick
Terrazzo Floors
New finishes are peeled back to reveal the historic structure. Terrazzo floors present in the original service bays are exposed in the ground floor units that face N Street. The concrete encasement of the cast iron structure was removed in public areas to expose the original structure and preserve the history of the building. In doing so, expanses of the original brickwork and heavy cast iron framing are revealed. 1912 fireproofed structure, at right.
Community Space
The Chapman Stables Housing adaptive reuse both preserves and celebrates the Chapman Coal Company Garage and Stable historic resource by building an identity and sense of place of the community around the history of the place. Throughout the project, remnants of the original structure are exposed and reused to provide visual and tactile reminders of the origin of the place. These remnants help to determine the layout of the dwelling units but even more importantly, they define the public spaces of the complex.
Their meaning is rich and the materials are imbued with the spirit of the early twentieth-century stable and light industrial history and that of the neighborhood.
Connection between the exterior and the interior occurs at the individual dwelling units, and at a larger scale, all of the community amenity space.
The new addition is located in the rear of the site and reestablishes the urban block by defining both the edge of the unnamed alley and extending for another block into Hanover Place that resides between O and N Streets. The U-shaped floor plate is centered around an interior garden that returns an open space to the center of the site. Dwelling units placed on the roof of the historic building mimic the light monitor form of the skylights in the original service areas and knit the new into a larger composition in the spirit of the architect Atkinson’s 1912 concept.
The above isometric explains community defining gathering and circulation spaces. Relics of the historic building are markers of destinations (brick walls at the ends) that distinguish the hallways and demonstrate wayfinding innate to the interior design. Community space can be found in the central courtyard, new addition rooftop, and commercial space at the alley and each corridor intersection.
The creation of a new addition connects to the historic building, creating a U-shaped floor plate centered around an interior garden that serves an organizing element for resident activities.
Expanses of original brickwork and heavy cast iron framing are revealed throughout the building.
The rear wall of the original 1908 horse stable was weak and crumbling. The wall was carefully dismantled and a new wall was reassembled using the original bricks.
The continuous and varied reconfiguration of the historic building from coal sales offices to horse stable to car garage to warehouse to housing community – has resulted in a unique structure with mixed structural systems and atypical floor plans.
The varied history of the building provides an opportunity for more than a dozen different dwelling unit types.
The program of each unit type conforms its configuration to the place; be it the historic units, the lighthouse units, or the new units – thus creating a varied layout.
Urban Housing Design
The continuous and varied reconfiguration of the historic building from coal sales offices to horse stable to car garage to warehouse to housing community – has resulted in a unique structure with mixed structural systems and atypical floor plans.
The varied history of the building provides an opportunity for more than a dozen different dwelling unit types.
The program of each unit type conforms its configuration to the place; be it the historic units, the lighthouse units, or the new units – thus creating a varied layout.
Historic Units
Historic features such as brick, load-bearing walls and steel columns were used as the unit demising partitions within the units in the historic building.
Restoring the N Street facade involved replacing original windows in kind and removing various small masonry infill bays and incompatible table windows. The brick work was cleaned and repointed. Existing stone arch keys remained and were painted as well as the continuous cornices. On a larger urban scale, these sight lines were carefully considered so the new rooftop units were not visible from the street, and the rear addition devised for this development as not visible from the street, therefore a less compatible addition was acceptable.
All windows were replaced in kind that work with the proportions and details of the 1916 facade, and incompatible windows that accreted over time removed. The existing brick stone arch keys and sills were repointed. The existing painted tin cornice was patched in kind and painted. The existing 2/2 windows were removed and replaced in kind with windows of similar profile and material and finish with insulated glazing.
Sightlines and circulation were also key design drivers within the units, as seen above in a ground floor one-bedroom unit. Circulation networks connecting programmatic spaces played a key role in spatial organization in the design.
Lightwell Units, Historic Building
Restricting the visible height of the addition above the historic structure to one story from N Street was the driving force behind the massing.
This elevation was complicated as it incorporated three components; the 1912 garage, the 1908 stable, and the rear building of the commercial complex. This east end wall of the garage was constructed of brick and was three bays deep with an abutting stable forming a fourth bay.
A corbelled brick cornice rose above the hayloft indicating the original roofline of the stable. A brick wall extended above the cornice, enclosing the roof of the stable which was raised when it was incorporated into the garage.
New Construction Units
The taller massing of the addition at the rear of the site allowed the building to define a new anchor presence at the end of Hanover Place and restore a neighborhood pedestrian feel to the project. It is hoped that in the future light industrial garages that surround the building at this end will include retail or other community engagement items.
Chapman Stables is sited to make several improvements in restoring the grid of streets in the neighborhood. The units on N Street include small gardens. The same occurs for ground floor units at the rear of the housing development. The street side entrances and gardens provide a presence on the unnamed alley and extend the half-sized Hanover Place. It is hoped that over time the commercial streets across the alley currently occupied by light production ad artisans will grow into a vibrant area. The project clearly defines the end of a rectangular block that has been lost for many years.
There is something about how regular the N Street facade appears at first glance, but as we began to document/demolish the historic building, we discovered irregularity in the differing units. The new construction is the reverse; with a seemingly irregular window pattern that has logic to it and regular units within.
Of the 114 total units, the new addition consists of 78 one, two and penthouse layouts ranging from 540 SF to 1,100 SF. A rooftop penthouse and private terraces are included in the amenities available. We took advantage of the opportunities to design a varied floor plan for several unique typologies, as seen in the foyer and loft level floorplans below.
Conclusion
J. Edward Chapman was a budding and determined entrepreneur in Washington, DC as the twentieth century began. From what we can tell by looking back on his buildings and property, he was fundamentally American, pragmatic, provincial and undaunted by setback or hardship. Sometime immediately after the turn of the century, Chapman started selling low-grade lignite coal to his neighbors – coal he mined in his own backyard, likely with shovels and wheelbarrows. Business was good for a couple of years but by 1908, lignite coal was being replaced with more efficient sources, Chapman needed a new business venture. In 1908, he hired architect Nicholas T. Haller and placed a horse stable in the coal yard.
When catastrophic fire damaged the horse stable in 1912, Chapman decided to rebuild with a focus on a new business that would cater to the ever-increasing number of automobiles he saw in a public garage dedicated to automobiles and auto travel. In what we imagine as a gesture to save costs, Chapman and Atkinson incorporated the remnants of both the horse stable and the coal yard buildings in this new structure. With the capacity to serve seventy-five cars, a long, two story garage that extended one hundred and eighty five feet long emerged. This time Chapman would not let fire stake his livelihood, so his architect designed a heavy cast iron frame structure for the garage. He then covered the cast iron frame with mesh and concrete, creating a fire-proof building.
The structure stood for the next hundred years, taking turns serving duty as a warehouse and light industrial factory.
Years after his ventures came to an end, Chapman’s name was uncovered on the brick of the building, buried under layers of paint. Chapman’s name lives on as the name of the housing community for over one hundred and fifty residents.
Project Team:
Client: Four Points, LLC
John Sunter, Vice President, Development
Stan Voudrie, Asset Management
Michael Carline, Senior Vice President, Development and Construction
Simon Romano, Senior Vice President, Construction
Consulting Team:
Historic Preservation: MV+A
Structural Engineer: Ehlert Bryan
Civil Engineer: Christopher Consultants
MEP Engineer: META Engineers
Landscape Architect: Clinton & Associates
Acoustics: Acoustical Design Collaborative, Ltd.
Interiors and Branding: Design Army
Traffic Engineering: Gorove Slade
General Contractor: GCS | Sigal Inc.
Photography:
Copyrighted Hoachlander Davis Photography
STUDIOTWENTYSEVENARCHITECTURE is:
John K. Burke, AIA
James Spearman, AIA, LEED AP, Associate Principal
Katie Selis, AIA, LEED AP, Associate Principal
Jacob Marzolf , AIA, Associate Principal
Natalie Mutchler, AIA
Bethan Llewellyn-Yen, RA, LEED AP BD+C
Allyson Klinner, AIA
Claire Barrows, AIA
Keisha Wilson, LEED BD+C
Ana Zannoni
Niki Livingston
Lixu Wang, LEED Green Associate
Adrian Vera
Forrest Xu
Claudia Latimer, LEED Green Associate
Colleen Burke
Charlotte Fleischel
Studio Twenty Seven Architecture is a collaborative design practice based in Washington DC. For more information and to stay up to date with Studio Twenty Seven Architecture, please visit our website at www.studio27arch.com
Point of Contact:
John K. Burke, AIA
202-939-0027
jburke@studio27arch.com
First published 2020 by STUDIOTWENTYSEVENARCHITECTURE
www.studio27arch.com
COPYRIGHT:
© 2020 STUDIOTWENTYSEVENARCHITECTURE.
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All material is compiled from sources believed to be reliable, but published without responsibility for errors or omissions. We apologize for any omissions and, if noted, will amend in future editions.
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