In 1727, Charles Calvert, 5th Lord Baltimore awarded a land grant for present day Mount Pleasant to James Holmead. This estate also included the present-day Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, and Pleasant Plains neighborhoods. James’s son, Anthony, inherited the estate in 1750 and named it Pleasant Plains. After the United States Congress created the District of Columbia in 1791, Pleasant Plains estate became part of Washington County, a section of the District lying between what now is Florida Avenue and the Maryland border.
During the Civil War, New England native Samuel P. Brown purchased 73 acres of land between 14th and 17th Streets, NW. Brown built a house and allowed a wartime hospital to be constructed on his land. After the War, he began selling his land in parcels. He named the area, Mount Pleasant Village, because it contained the land having the highest elevation of the original Pleasant Plains estate.
Most of the original settlers built wooden frame houses and farmed their tracts, growing their own food. Stores and other businesses opened around what today is the intersection of Fourteenth Street and Park Road, NW. Settlers laid out early roads in the area, such as Adams Mill Road, Mount Pleasant Street, Newton Street, and Park Road to follow local custom and to accommodate local needs and land ownership. Although Mount Pleasant was within the District of Columbia, it was separated from the city of Washington by vacant land and was rural by comparison. Because of this separate development, the Mount Pleasant street grid is distinct from Washington’s rectilinear grid and now that the two are part of a single urban fabric, some of its streets appear to have been laid out haphazardly, with several intersecting city streets at odd or severe angles to the greater design.
The streets were lined with tall trees that created a continuous canopy of shade. Gardens of ivy, shrubs, and flowering plants were created in the successive terraces from the streets to the base of the stairs of the typical front porches. Landings in the staircases through the terraces were marked with fountains and sculpture. Houses were built adjacent to each other, as row houses. Alleys between all streets provided access for servants and services. Fences separated properties into back yards with vegetable gardens, fruit trees, barns and garages. Many houses were constructed with two levels of cellars below the entry level from the main street, but all having disguised access for landscape equipment through the cellars under the house. Rear sleeping porches extended from the floors with bedrooms.
Affluent professionals began returning to the neighborhood in the early 1980s. According to the Washingtonian magazine, housing prices rose nearly as fast as any area of metropolitan Washington. Many homes were renovated and some projects were featured in local and national magazines. A one million dollar “green” renovation was featured in a National Public Radio story.
The western four-fifths of the Mount Pleasant area is a largely wooded residential enclave bounded on two sides by Rock Creek Park. Structures in this area are primarily row houses, with some subdivided into one or two apartments. A few of the original nineteenth century wood-frame houses remain, mostly north of Park Road. The eastern border of Mount Pleasant, along Sixteenth and Mount Pleasant Streets, is marked by mid-rise apartment buildings. These buildings offer rental apartments, condominium and cooperatives. There is a four-block commercial corridor with convenience shopping in the neighborhood along Mount Pleasant Street.