This post shares photos and a brief history of Rosedale in Cleveland Park in Washington D.C.
The area we now call Cleveland Park was once part of a massive 800 acre estate owned by Colonel Ninian Beall. After Beall’s death in 1717, his property was divided among his 12 children and a tract of it was bought by a man whose name is lost to history. This man built a small stone cottage on the property around 1740 and the estate was known as Pretty Prospects. In 1793, the property was acquired by General Uriah Forrest, who had been the mayor of Georgetown and was at that time serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. Forrest had a large wood-framed house built onto the front of the stone cottage and renamed the property Rosedale. Rosedale was the Forrest family’s country estate which they built while living in the Forrest-Marbury House in Georgetown (read about that house HERE).
General Forrest was a prominent citizen of early Washington D.C. and Rosedale played host to many important people including President John Adams. Forrest himself would die in the front parlor of the house in 1805. Rosedale remained in the family until 1917 when it was rented by the Coonley family.