Potomac Boat Club
3530 Water St., NW., Washington, DCThe Potomac Boat Club, constructed in 1908, is one of two remaining early 20th-century boat clubs along the Potomac River in the District of Columbia. Along with the Washington Canoe Club, the Potomac Boat Club represents recreational pursuits that were an important part of Washington's life. The Potomac Boat Club meets Criterion A because of its association with the Potomac Boat Club, an organization founded in 1859. The Potomac Boat Club also is an excellent local example of the boat house as a building type.
The Potomac Boat Club survives as the only building in the District of Columbia associated with competitive rowing. While the building itself only dates to 1908, it is the sole remaining structure associated with the Potomac Boat Club and the history the Boat Club embodies. It represents not only the specific history of the club but also the importance of rowing as a sport. In order to understand the patterns that the Potomac Boat Club represents, it is necessary to understand the background of the sport. Rowing's greatest significance occurred in the 19th century. Unlike England, where rowing was the exclusive province of gentlemen, in the United States rowing was available to all. In the 19th century, rowing was a major sport in the order of boxing or football in the 20th century. Crowds of 20,000 or more would gather along 'river banks to watch races. Railroads would organize special trains to take people to race sites. During the 1870s rowing clubs appeared everywhere and several weekly publications were devoted to the sport. Professional scullers, like those depicted by Thomas Eakins, could win $5000 in high-stakes races. Races were sponsored not only by boat clubs but by patent medicine concerns, railroads, and excursion companies, Gamblers were heavily involved, resulting in several race-fixing scandals. The atmosphere surrounding these heavily wagered, professional races led to an increased interest in amateurism among both colleges and rowing clubs. In 1872, the Schuylkill Navy conducted the first all-amateur regatta and the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen was founded later that same year.
The history of the Potomac Boat Club as an organization closely parallels the national history of the sport. The Potomac Boat Club was founded as the Potomac Barge Club in 1859. Boat clubs in existence at that time included the Falcons, the Gazelles, and Undine, the latter organized by Governor Alexander R. Shepherd in order to put together a crew with plenty of beef in the boat" (Proctor, May 3, 1936). Along with the now-defunct Analostans and Columbians, the Potomac Boat Club was part of the Potomac River Rowing Association which held races attracting national competition. John Clagett Proctor quoted from a Star article of June 13, 1859,
Although the Potomac Boat Club was organized to represent Georgetown Proctor on May 3, 1936), the club's first boat house was located at the 10th Street Canal Bridge. This building was followed by three successive boathouses at the foot of 31st Street in Georgetown, the most recent of which was constructed around 1875. Proctor, April 6, 1930, and "A Brief History of the Potomac Boat Club"). The club moved to its present location in 1908.
In 1930, John Hadley Doyle, President of the Potomac Boat Club from 1898 - 1908 reminisced for Proctor:
Mary Mitchell notes the significance of the older Potomac Boat Club Building in "After-hours in Georgetown in the 1890s." The present clubhouse continues the tradition by hosting a variety of activities. A newspaper article published in 1932 noted the following activities of the Potomac Boat Club: rowing, boxing, wrestling, basketball, horseshoe pitching, swimming, and canoe racing ("Potomac Boat Club Has Varied Program," February 28, 1932). The Potomac Boat Club also took canoeists when the crew of the Colonial Canoe Club, formerly of the Washington Canoe Club, transferred their affiliation in 1924 Hazzard, np. In 1933, Potomac Boat Club housed 150 private canoes, nine cedar racing canoes, and 35 shells.
In addition to its contributions to local recreational and social life, the Potomac Boat Club played a significant role in the history of racing in the United States by rehabilitating Charles Courtney, a legendary 19th-century oarsman who later won equal fame as coach at Cornell. Courtney was a professional who rowed in the single scull match races that were so extraordinarily popular in the late 19th century. In 1880 Courtney was scheduled to meet Edward Hanlan, another professional oarsman, in a match race comparable to the World Series or Superbowl in the degree of promotion and gambling involved. Gamblers approached the favorite Courtney with a bribe to throw the race, Courtney refused and found his racing shell sawn in half the morning before the race. Using a borrowed boat, Courtney lost to the underdog Hanlan and the ensuing scandal ended rowing as a professional sport. Although he was disgraced, the Potomac Boat Club offered Courtney a job as a coach, which he held from 1881-1885. During that time the Potomac Boat Club crews gained national recognition and "during the period from 1885 to 1888 were invincible." Cornell University then approached Courtney in 1885 about establishing a team at Cornell. Courtney served as a coach at Cornell from 18851916 during which time Cornell crews dominated intercollegiate rowing KoskiKarell, "Information on Charles E. Courtney"). Courtney was considered the most successful of the renowned late 19th and early 20th century coaches. One hundred one of the 146 Cornell crews Courtney coached were victorious, Cornell finished first in 14 of 24 Poughkeepsie races and never finished lower than a third.
Potomac Boat Club has excelled in more recent competitions as well. Potomac Boat Club serves as the home of several local high schools and college teams as well as a club for its adult members. While the club has been represented on every Olympic rowing team since 1948, it is perhaps most noted for Charles S. Butt, Jr., whose coaching success is comparable to that of Charles Courtney. Butt, who began coaching the Washington-Lee High School team in 1949, has won more high school competitions than any coach in United States history (Interview with Dan Koski-Karell). Described as "legendary," Butt not only directed the Washington-Lee crew to a national championship in his first year coaching but went on to win several more national championships and five Henley Regattas. JEB. Stuart High School, which also trains at the Potomac Boat Club, won the Royal Henley Regatta in 1968.
The Potomac Boat Club building typifies the form of "second generation" boat houses of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The development of Boat House Row in Philadelphia, the most intact collection of boat houses in the United States, illustrates the evolution of this form. The first boat houses were utilitarian sheds designed to shelter and store shells. These early buildings were then replaced with larger, more elaborate structures containing locker rooms and spaces, like ballrooms, to house unrelated social functions. Second-generation boat houses accommodated boat storage on the first floor and social functions on the second. As in Boat House Row, which contains boat houses designed by such notable architects as Frank Furness, the Potomac Boat Club was also architect-designed.
Designed by A.B. Mullett & Company, the Potomac Boat Club was built by the Charles J. Cassidy Company at a cost of $9000 DC. Building Permit No. 2665, March 10, 1908). AB. Mullett & Company was the architectural firm of Alfred Bult Mullett (1834-1890), former Architect of the Treasury and designer of the old Executive Office Building, and his two sons Thomas A. Mullett (1862-1935) and Frederick Mullett (d. 1924) (Withey, pp. 432-433). After the senior Mullett's death in 1890, the firm designed numerous small buildings in Washington. Thomas Mullett was responsible for the Capitol Park Hotel the Hotel Harris, and the Blue Ridge Rod and Gun Company. His entry in The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography notes that "he loved the outdoors, particularly when it was scenic."
Frame boat houses like the Potomac Boat Club are an endangered building type. Because of their materials, they are vulnerable not only to fire but to floods and ice jams. Many boat houses succumbed to obsolescence when the bicycle craze took over; others fell victim to waterfront development plans (Mendenhall, p. 23). It is no coincidence that Boathouse Row in Philadelphia, a National Historic Landmark, survives because of its location in the protected setting of Fairmount Park (Article by Sara Freligh).
Ice floes appear to have caused the greatest damage to Potomac Boat Club. In 1936 ice jams were particularly severe. A contemporary newspaper article noted that the floating docks were torn away and that the ice "wrecked part of the building." The club was remodeled at that time ("Potomac Boat Club Reconditioned, Ready for Use," 1936). In 1962, the club began work on the 1st story of the present addition. The $16,000 fireproof addition replaced storage formerly located at Dempsey's Boathouse, which burned in 1961. The history addition featured an observation deck and was designed to accommodate a second story ("Club's New Addition Fireproof," January 19, 1962).
Despite its size, style, and materials the addition has surprisingly little impact on the original building of the Potomac Boat Club. The size and scale of the Aqueduct Bridge pier, on the west, dwarfs the more delicate frame building, particularly because it projects further out into the river than the Club. The Potomac Boat Club is less a free-standing object than an element in a riverscape, similar to a townhouse in an urban setting. Because the 2nd floor of the addition is recessed back from the plane of the original building and because its materials and style relate more closely to the abutting townhouses than to the Potomac Boat Club, from a distance the addition appears to be part of the townhouses rather than the original boat house. Thus the original reading of the boathouse from the river and the Virginia shoreline has not been greatly disrupted. Furthermore, the value contrasts in the addition are so subdued that they do not challenge the pattern of solid and void, light and dark, that characterize the visual appearance of the older building.
The essential form and integrity of the Potomac Boat Club and its Craftsman style detailing remain unchanged. Because the riverfront and the significant interior spaces remain, the building continues to reflect its historic association with the Potomac Boat Club and with rowing as it contributes to life on the Potomac River.
Local significance of the building:
The Potomac Boat Club survives as the only building in the District of Columbia associated with competitive rowing. While the building itself only dates to 1908, it is the sole remaining structure associated with the Potomac Boat Club and the history the Boat Club embodies. It represents not only the specific history of the club but also the importance of rowing as a sport. In order to understand the patterns that the Potomac Boat Club represents, it is necessary to understand the background of the sport. Rowing's greatest significance occurred in the 19th century. Unlike England, where rowing was the exclusive province of gentlemen, in the United States rowing was available to all. In the 19th century, rowing was a major sport in the order of boxing or football in the 20th century. Crowds of 20,000 or more would gather along 'river banks to watch races. Railroads would organize special trains to take people to race sites. During the 1870s rowing clubs appeared everywhere and several weekly publications were devoted to the sport. Professional scullers, like those depicted by Thomas Eakins, could win $5000 in high-stakes races. Races were sponsored not only by boat clubs but by patent medicine concerns, railroads, and excursion companies, Gamblers were heavily involved, resulting in several race-fixing scandals. The atmosphere surrounding these heavily wagered, professional races led to an increased interest in amateurism among both colleges and rowing clubs. In 1872, the Schuylkill Navy conducted the first all-amateur regatta and the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen was founded later that same year.
The history of the Potomac Boat Club as an organization closely parallels the national history of the sport. The Potomac Boat Club was founded as the Potomac Barge Club in 1859. Boat clubs in existence at that time included the Falcons, the Gazelles, and Undine, the latter organized by Governor Alexander R. Shepherd in order to put together a crew with plenty of beef in the boat" (Proctor, May 3, 1936). Along with the now-defunct Analostans and Columbians, the Potomac Boat Club was part of the Potomac River Rowing Association which held races attracting national competition. John Clagett Proctor quoted from a Star article of June 13, 1859,
"A number of our citizens have formed themselves into a club under the title of the Potomac Barge Club for the purpose of aquatic exercise and pleasure. They have purchased a beautiful barge of 40 feet in length with six cars and finished and furnished in most superb style ... We are glad to know that some of our prominent citizens have turned their attention to this pleasant and healthy exercise; for certainly there is no city in the Union where this exercise is more needed and can be so successfully prosecuted as in this, where there are so many engaged in sedentary pursuits and where we have such a magnificent stream as our broad Potomac."
Although the Potomac Boat Club was organized to represent Georgetown Proctor on May 3, 1936), the club's first boat house was located at the 10th Street Canal Bridge. This building was followed by three successive boathouses at the foot of 31st Street in Georgetown, the most recent of which was constructed around 1875. Proctor, April 6, 1930, and "A Brief History of the Potomac Boat Club"). The club moved to its present location in 1908.
In 1930, John Hadley Doyle, President of the Potomac Boat Club from 1898 - 1908 reminisced for Proctor:
This Potomac Boat Club has had a wonderful stretch of history, from its membership of the very best citizens, a boat house that for years was the gathering place for cotillions and dances of all kinds by the elite of Georgetown, their assembly room in the old house at the foot of Thirty-first street, being one of the largest in the city, ... supplied with heating arrangements for Winter gatherings. Oh, it was a swell place and in its brightest days was the resort of the beaux and belles of the period. It will be then seen that the club made much of its social whirl and hence the place became the home of the cotillianist, as much so as to those who went into the rowing game. Added to the glamor of the boat house, the club also possessed an up-river landing - where barge parties and picnics were almost daily happenings during the season and the spot where representatives of the other clubs used to meet to bury the hatchet and participate in the cheer that is now prohibited.
Mary Mitchell notes the significance of the older Potomac Boat Club Building in "After-hours in Georgetown in the 1890s." The present clubhouse continues the tradition by hosting a variety of activities. A newspaper article published in 1932 noted the following activities of the Potomac Boat Club: rowing, boxing, wrestling, basketball, horseshoe pitching, swimming, and canoe racing ("Potomac Boat Club Has Varied Program," February 28, 1932). The Potomac Boat Club also took canoeists when the crew of the Colonial Canoe Club, formerly of the Washington Canoe Club, transferred their affiliation in 1924 Hazzard, np. In 1933, Potomac Boat Club housed 150 private canoes, nine cedar racing canoes, and 35 shells.
In addition to its contributions to local recreational and social life, the Potomac Boat Club played a significant role in the history of racing in the United States by rehabilitating Charles Courtney, a legendary 19th-century oarsman who later won equal fame as coach at Cornell. Courtney was a professional who rowed in the single scull match races that were so extraordinarily popular in the late 19th century. In 1880 Courtney was scheduled to meet Edward Hanlan, another professional oarsman, in a match race comparable to the World Series or Superbowl in the degree of promotion and gambling involved. Gamblers approached the favorite Courtney with a bribe to throw the race, Courtney refused and found his racing shell sawn in half the morning before the race. Using a borrowed boat, Courtney lost to the underdog Hanlan and the ensuing scandal ended rowing as a professional sport. Although he was disgraced, the Potomac Boat Club offered Courtney a job as a coach, which he held from 1881-1885. During that time the Potomac Boat Club crews gained national recognition and "during the period from 1885 to 1888 were invincible." Cornell University then approached Courtney in 1885 about establishing a team at Cornell. Courtney served as a coach at Cornell from 18851916 during which time Cornell crews dominated intercollegiate rowing KoskiKarell, "Information on Charles E. Courtney"). Courtney was considered the most successful of the renowned late 19th and early 20th century coaches. One hundred one of the 146 Cornell crews Courtney coached were victorious, Cornell finished first in 14 of 24 Poughkeepsie races and never finished lower than a third.
Potomac Boat Club has excelled in more recent competitions as well. Potomac Boat Club serves as the home of several local high schools and college teams as well as a club for its adult members. While the club has been represented on every Olympic rowing team since 1948, it is perhaps most noted for Charles S. Butt, Jr., whose coaching success is comparable to that of Charles Courtney. Butt, who began coaching the Washington-Lee High School team in 1949, has won more high school competitions than any coach in United States history (Interview with Dan Koski-Karell). Described as "legendary," Butt not only directed the Washington-Lee crew to a national championship in his first year coaching but went on to win several more national championships and five Henley Regattas. JEB. Stuart High School, which also trains at the Potomac Boat Club, won the Royal Henley Regatta in 1968.
The Potomac Boat Club building typifies the form of "second generation" boat houses of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The development of Boat House Row in Philadelphia, the most intact collection of boat houses in the United States, illustrates the evolution of this form. The first boat houses were utilitarian sheds designed to shelter and store shells. These early buildings were then replaced with larger, more elaborate structures containing locker rooms and spaces, like ballrooms, to house unrelated social functions. Second-generation boat houses accommodated boat storage on the first floor and social functions on the second. As in Boat House Row, which contains boat houses designed by such notable architects as Frank Furness, the Potomac Boat Club was also architect-designed.
Designed by A.B. Mullett & Company, the Potomac Boat Club was built by the Charles J. Cassidy Company at a cost of $9000 DC. Building Permit No. 2665, March 10, 1908). AB. Mullett & Company was the architectural firm of Alfred Bult Mullett (1834-1890), former Architect of the Treasury and designer of the old Executive Office Building, and his two sons Thomas A. Mullett (1862-1935) and Frederick Mullett (d. 1924) (Withey, pp. 432-433). After the senior Mullett's death in 1890, the firm designed numerous small buildings in Washington. Thomas Mullett was responsible for the Capitol Park Hotel the Hotel Harris, and the Blue Ridge Rod and Gun Company. His entry in The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography notes that "he loved the outdoors, particularly when it was scenic."
Frame boat houses like the Potomac Boat Club are an endangered building type. Because of their materials, they are vulnerable not only to fire but to floods and ice jams. Many boat houses succumbed to obsolescence when the bicycle craze took over; others fell victim to waterfront development plans (Mendenhall, p. 23). It is no coincidence that Boathouse Row in Philadelphia, a National Historic Landmark, survives because of its location in the protected setting of Fairmount Park (Article by Sara Freligh).
Ice floes appear to have caused the greatest damage to Potomac Boat Club. In 1936 ice jams were particularly severe. A contemporary newspaper article noted that the floating docks were torn away and that the ice "wrecked part of the building." The club was remodeled at that time ("Potomac Boat Club Reconditioned, Ready for Use," 1936). In 1962, the club began work on the 1st story of the present addition. The $16,000 fireproof addition replaced storage formerly located at Dempsey's Boathouse, which burned in 1961. The history addition featured an observation deck and was designed to accommodate a second story ("Club's New Addition Fireproof," January 19, 1962).
Despite its size, style, and materials the addition has surprisingly little impact on the original building of the Potomac Boat Club. The size and scale of the Aqueduct Bridge pier, on the west, dwarfs the more delicate frame building, particularly because it projects further out into the river than the Club. The Potomac Boat Club is less a free-standing object than an element in a riverscape, similar to a townhouse in an urban setting. Because the 2nd floor of the addition is recessed back from the plane of the original building and because its materials and style relate more closely to the abutting townhouses than to the Potomac Boat Club, from a distance the addition appears to be part of the townhouses rather than the original boat house. Thus the original reading of the boathouse from the river and the Virginia shoreline has not been greatly disrupted. Furthermore, the value contrasts in the addition are so subdued that they do not challenge the pattern of solid and void, light and dark, that characterize the visual appearance of the older building.
The essential form and integrity of the Potomac Boat Club and its Craftsman style detailing remain unchanged. Because the riverfront and the significant interior spaces remain, the building continues to reflect its historic association with the Potomac Boat Club and with rowing as it contributes to life on the Potomac River.
Entertainment/recreation; Architecture
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1991.
About National Register Listings
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.
The District was a major center of the slave trade in the 19th century: Prior to the Civil War, Washington, D.C. was home to one of the largest slave markets in the country. Slaves were bought and sold in public auctions held in the city, and many prominent politicians and businessmen owned slaves.