About Us

The Tregaron Conservancy is a nonprofit organization founded in January 2006. As the property steward of thirteen acres of recently protected and donated land, the Tregaron Conservancy is restoring and maintaining an important historic landmark. The nonprofit organization that preceded the Tregaron Conservancy is the Friends of Tregaron Foundation.

Who are the Friends of Tregaron?

The Friends of Tregaron is a community organization that was started more than 30 years ago by citizens concerned about the future of historic Tregaron Estate. Over the past three decades, the Friends of Tregaron and other civic organizations, have banded together to stop many massive developments that have threatened historic Tregaron Estate. Thanks to overwhelming community support, we successfully fought off projects that ranged up to 200 houses with multiple roads and parking lots cut into the beautiful landscape.

What is Tregaron Estate?

The twenty acre estate Tregaron lies between Cleveland Park and Woodley Park and borders on a small strip of Rock Creek Park. This land was once part of a larger estate known as Twin Oaks.

Acquired in the 1880s by Gardiner Greene Hubbard, founder of the National Geographic Society. Hubbard played a significant role in the invention and subsequent distribution of the telephone. His daughter Mabel Hubbard married Alexander Graham Bell and eventually inherited the property which became Tregaron. Mrs. Alexander Graham Bell sold the property to James Parmelee, a successful financier from Cleveland, Ohio. He hired Charles Adams Platt, the era’s foremost country house architect in the United States, to design his home.  In 1900, Platt's office was one of the New York firms that dominated the general development of American architecture, and his country houses and Georgian style mansions were regarded as the best American examples of their genre.

For more information on Platt, see Boston University Professor Keith N. Morgan’s books Charles A. Platt: Artist as Architect (MIT Press, 1985) and Shaping an American Landscape: The Art and Architecture of Charles A. Platt (University Press of New England, 1995)

In 1912, Charles Platt brought in Ellen Biddle Shipman who is widely recognized for her contributions to the field of landscape architecture, particularly as a horticulturalist. Tregaron was the second collaboration between Shipman and Platt. While Platt planned the circulation pattern for the site along with the formal gardens – in 1914, it was Shipman who completed the plans. In 1915, she designed plantings around the pond, causeway, bridle path and brook. Her Christmas 1915 plan, presented to the Parmelees as a gift, primarily focuses on trees and woody paths.

In 1927, Ellen Shipman was hired again to design a wild garden for the Causeway. Shipman had a continuing relationship with the landscape, designing different, detailed sections of the property over many years. Parmelee named his estate “The Causeway” because of the large, handsomely designed stone bridge that one crossed entering his estate.

For more information about Shipman, see The Gardens of Ellen Biddle Shipman by Judith B. Tankard (Sagapress, Inc., 1996).

A premier architect of the Country House Movement in America, Charles Adams Platt designed the buildings and gardens to relate to each other as a single unit, often planning careful views from the buildings to specific landscape features, and vice versa. Platt realized the importance of viewing and designing the house and grounds as a unit. The Italian villa concept, which promoted the house and gardens as a single entity appealed to him. Because of the importance of this planned single unit, the buildings AND the entire 20 acre landscape of Tregaron Estate are historically protected as a significant landmark.

The mansion on the estate affords planned vistas to the north and south. The northern view shed looks down upon an undulating meadow to a bridle path and stream surrounded by mature trees. Also visible from this vantage point are small stone bridges and retaining walls. The southern vista overlooks an open grassy meadow that is bordered by trees. Within view is the prominent causeway. Like the northern vista, stone hardscape features and the bridlepath are visible. There are also views to the west of the National Cathedral and to the east of the Soldier’s Home.

After the death of the Parmelees, Ambassador Joseph Davies and his wife, Marjorie Merriweather Post, purchased Tregaron in 1940. They renamed the estate “Tregaron,” meaning village of three wells, after Davies’ mother’s ancestral home in Wales. Over the years, many prominent Washingtonians visited the house and grounds including three U.S. Presidents. The Davies opened their estate to the public for many special benefits ranging from National Symphony performances to the American Merchant Marine Library.

After Davies’ death in 1958, an appropriate use for the estate was sought. Suggestions were made that it should become the home of the Vice President, the Russian Embassy, a center for the study of international affairs, or a retreat center. Eventually, the Washington International School settled there and attempted to purchase the entire property, but only managed to acquire the buildings on the top of the hill, purchasing six of the twenty acres. The remaining 14 acres were bought by the Tregaron Limited Partnership, an Israeli corporation.

Private land? Why give to a land conservancy now?

For over 40 years there were numerous attempts to build multiple housing units on historic Tregaron Estate, ranging from 9 to 200 houses. These attempts have failed due to the strong historical and legal protections surrounding the landscape. Recently, as a result of the efforts of the Friends of Tregaron, the non-profit organization that preceded the Tregaron Conservancy, and after years of negotiations, the private land owner agreed to donate 13 acres to be placed in a newly-formed land conservancy. In exchange for the possibility of very limited development on the property's edges with minimal impact on the historic integrity, the private owner Tregaron Limited Partnership, donated 13 out of their 14 acres to the Tregaron Conservancy. A legally binding agreement, signed January 24, 2006, by the Tregaron Limited Partnership, the Washington International School and the Friends of Tregaron Foundation sets forth the timing and details of the contribution of real property to the Tregaron Conservancy. In addition, there will be deed restrictions on the very limited development as well as conservation easements granted to the Tregaron Conservancy. This land conservancy holds the deed, restore, maintain and operate the land – open to the public.

As a result of this stunning legal victory and global resolution, the Friends of Tregaron has started a new non-profit organization, the Tregaron Conservancy In exchange for very limited development on the property’s edges with minimal impact on the historic integrity, the current owners will donate 13 out of their 14 acres to the new Tregaron Conservancy. Those 13 acres will never be developed. Instead, the land will remain as open green space.

Why is Tregaron Estate so important?

The twenty-acre estate (originally known as “The Causeway”) represents the most important surviving landscape collaboration of noted architect, Charles Adams Platt, and renowned landscape architect, Ellen Biddle Shipman. Tregaron is also the only country house and estate designed by Platt in Washington, DC, and one of only a handful of his surviving estates nationwide. Shipman’s naturalistic garden at Tregaron is one of only two known examples of this type of garden in the country. On January 24, 1979, the entire estate including all of the paths and trees as well as the mansion and supporting buildings were designated a Category III landmark of the District of Columbia. Tregaron Estate was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 and is a contributing feature to the Cleveland Park Historic District (1986).