This set of intricately carved rosewood furniture was believed to have been sent by the Empress Dowager of China to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis before arriving at Twin Oaks
THE EARLY YEARS
The land of Twin Oaks was once owned by Uriah Forrest, an American general in the Revolutionary war, a member of the first Continental Congress, and one of Maryland’s first delegates to the U.S. Congress.
In 1888, prominent Washingtonian Gardiner Green Hubbard purchased the land from one of Forrest’s descendants. Hubbard, founder and first president of the National Geographic Society, intended to build a summer home for his family on the 17.6 acres of gently sloping
hilltop land – they lived in Dupont Circle at the time. He commissioned Paris-trained architect Richard Allen for the job, and Allen designed and constructed a 26-room mansion in the early Colonial Revival style, modeling it after a New England frame summer house. It is the last remaining example of this architectural style in the city.
