The 1894 Brown-Toutorsky House in Washington, D.C

Located at 1720 16th Street NW in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C, the Toutorsky Mansion, also called the Brown-Toutorsky House, is a five-story, 18-room mansion. Completed in 1894 for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Henry Billings Brown, the house features a dark red brick exterior with stepped and scroll-edged gables, modeled on 16th-century Flemish buildings. The interior is designed with a mixture of Gothic, Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Colonial elements, including eight fireplaces and a main staircase with hand-carved griffins.

The house served as a site for profound deliberations, including the writing of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision by Justice Brown. After 1927, the mansion was rented to the Persian Legation to the United States. In 1942, the Zionist Organization of America purchased the house, using it as a headquarters until 1947 to advocate for the recognition of Israel. In 1947, the mansion was purchased by Basil Peter Toutorsky, a Russian nobleman and musician who, along with his wife Maria Ignacia Howard Toutorsky, ran the Toutorsky Academy of Music for nearly four decades.

In 1988, the Toutorskys bequeathed the house to Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory of Music. After the university sold the property in 1990 for $808,000, it was purchased by Bruce Johnson, who renovated the building and hosted community events such as "Broadway Cares" benefits. In 2011, the property was sold for $5.75 million to the Republic of the Congo. Since 2012, it has served as the embassy for the Republic of the Congo.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons