The Patterson House is at 15 Dupont Circle. The house was commissioned by Robert Patterson, with architect Stanford White, and finished in 1903. It is a huge house – 36,000 square feet. The lot cost $83,000 and the house cost $200,000.
Patterson was the owner of the Chicago Tribune, and used this house to entertain when he was in D.C. The first big event held there was the coming out of the Patterson’s daughter, Cissy Patterson, who went on to own the Washington Times-Herald and become a major socialite and powerful figure in D.C. Cissy Patterson loaned the house to President Calvin Coolidge in 1927, so he could live there while the White House was undergoing renovations.
The house is currently owned by the Washington Club, a women’s social group.
Update: In June 2014, the Washington Club sold the mansion for $20 million. It was bought by SB Urban. The plan is to divide the mansion into 90 tiny (400 sq.ft.) pied-à-terre apartments.