City and State: Alexandria, Virginia
Listed: 1992
Type of district: National Register Historic District, Virginia State Historic District
Major Intersection: Commonwealth Avenue and Oak Street
Rosemont National Register Historic District Report
Located northwest of Old Town Alexandria, the town of Rosemont is an unusually intact example of an early-20th-century, middle-class trolley-car suburb. The town’s initial development was closely linked to the growth of the electric rail system in the Washington, D.C. area. Its desirability was enhanced by its close proximity to Alexandria’s Union Station, a hub for steam-rail routes to the north, south and west.
Rosemont is largely a residential neighborhood, and the majority of its houses were constructed between 1908 and 1930 in designs and sizes ranging from small Craftsman bungalows to large Arts and Crafts and Colonial Revival houses. Although many of the houses were constructed from stock plans, several prominent architects are known to have made designs for buildings in the town. The best-known were D. Knickerbacker Boyd of Philadelphia, and Waddy Butler Wood and William I. Deming of Washington, D.C.