Walsh-McLean House

Walsh-McLean House is a Gilded Age mansion in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C., located at 2020 Massachusetts Avenue NW. Built in 1901, it is now the Embassy of Indonesia.

History

Thomas F. Walsh had emigrated penniless from Ireland to the United States in 1869, then over the next quarter century built up a small fortune as a carpenter, miner, and hotel manager. His first daughter died in infancy, but his daughter, Evalyn, and son, Vinson, both survived. He lost nearly all his life's savings in the Panic of 1893.
The family moved to Ouray, Colorado, in 1896, where Walsh bought the Camp Bird Mine and struck a massive vein of gold and silver. Now a multi-millionaire, Thomas Walsh moved his family to Washington, D.C., in 1898. After spending 1899–1900 in Paris, France, the Walshes returned to Washington where Thomas Walsh commenced the construction of a mansion on Massachusetts Avenue NW. Its carriage house is located at the rear of 1523 22nd Street NW and now houses a framing studio.
The Walsh-McLean House, completed in 1903, cost $835,000 and had 60 rooms, a theater, a ballroom, a French salon, a grand staircase, and $2 million in furnishings which took several years to purchase and install. Walsh's daughter Evalyn Walsh married Edward Beale "Ned" McLean in 1908, and after her father's death in April 1910 lived in the Walsh Mansion. In 1910, Ned McLean bought the allegedly cursed Hope Diamond for his wife for $180,000. Evalyn Walsh died on April 26, 1947. To cover Evalyn's significant debts, the Walsh Mansion was sold in 1952 to the Government of Indonesia for use as an embassy.