10231 Carroll Place

This circa 1890 Victorian Manor, Hadley Hall, situated on 4.5 acres of lawns and mature trees, was originally built as a summer home by Washington DC financier Brainard Warner. The large barn south of the house served as a carriage house for the estate.

Warner was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Washington during the Civil War. His arrival about 1890 in what was to become Kensington made him a relative latecomer to the area. Joseph’s Park, like the other huge colonial land grants, had long been broken up by then. William Joseph had sold his grant to the prominent and powerful Maryland Carroll family, in the person of Daniel Carroll of Upper Marlboro. In 1850, the land on which Hadley Hall was to stand was conveyed by local farmer Thomas Brown to his son, Daniel Brown, who built a farmhouse on the site. Daniel Brown in turn, in settlement of a debt, mortgaged the property to Spencer Jones, farmer and miller, who took ownership in 1880 following Brown’s default on the mortgage. Jones accumulated some smaller parcels from Luraner Knowles and Alfred Ray, making a parcel of 132 acres by the time Warner purchased it in 1890 for $20,000.

Warner subdivided the Jones Farm acres, creating a planned community with a street pattern laid out in two intersecting ovals. As he sold the lots, many were combined into larger homesteads creating a garden retreat with gracious houses nestled on generous parcels of land. The Hadley Hall parcel itself was the prime selection that Warner reserved for his own use, and consisted of 18 separate lots to make up its 4.5 acres. After taking possession of his property, Warner demolished the Brown farmhouse and erected the handsome Victorian residence which remains today. The name, Hadley Hall, was in honor of the childhood Fredericksburg home of his wife, Mary Philips Warner.

Although his business affairs kept him in Washington much of the year, Warner was a major influence in shaping the development of Kensington at the turn of the 20th century. He organized a stock company to build the first Town Hall, donated land, and with his friend Crosby Noyes established the Noyes Library, brought the Montgomery Press newspaper to Kensington placing Cornelius Clum as the editor, and built the Warner Memorial Presbyterian Church in memory of his father. Hadley Hall was sold in 1913 to Frederick McKenney, a prominent Washington lawyer. In 1951 it was transformed into a nursing home. Through the years there have been other owners and the nursing home remained, with additional wings added, until 2005. In 2007, the Warner Circle property was purchased by the Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission under the Legacy Open Space Program. The grounds will remain a public park and the historic structures built by Brainard Warner will remain.

The original façade remains intact. Note the steep roof angles and fish-scale shingles on the turret, the massing and broad proportions of the porches as well as the house itself. To the rear of the main building is a large carriage house with board-and-batten siding and a standing seam metal roof. The landscape suggests a woodland setting; a 19th century aesthetic concept referred to as “designed naturalism.”