Christian Heurich House Museum
German Roots in Washington

From the 1880's onwards, the area around Dupont Circle NW was one of Washington's most fashionable residential sections. The Christian Heurich House Museum - also known as the "Brewmaster's Castle" - gives us a feeling for that era of opulence.Built 1892-1894, the Heurich mansion, situated just south of Dupont Circle, was a model of how to built a luxurious, stylish, yet fireproof residence. The details of stonework reveal whimsy, expressing the good humor you might expect from a man who was still running his brewery at age 102. Christian Heurich was born in Haina (Thuringia) in September 1842. The family moved to Römhild in 1854. After doing a traditional apprenticeship as a brewer in Germany, he went to the United States in 1866, ending up in Washington in 1872, as the capital city was becoming wealthy and taking on cultural significance and a strong sense of itself. The Heurich Brewery was located approximately where the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts now stands.

Heurich's life as a journeyman apprentice and immigrant is beautifully sketched in his autobiography, published in 1934 in German as Aus meinem Leben 1842-1934. Von Haina in Thueringen nach Washington in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika. (My Life 1842-1934. From Haina in Thuringia to Washington in the United States of America.) He also describes a trip back to Germany on the eve of World War I and the general atmosphere prevailing in that period, so damaging to German-American families, both rich and poor. In his autobiography, Heurich gives a feeling that many shared in those tragic days during and following World War I:

Germany is and was my mother, and I was against the war, but America is my bride, and if I have to choose between the two, then I leave my mother and go to my bride. My entire existence is with my bride in America. Many times I turned down Honorary Orders offered by German princes, and I have never put a pfennig in a savings account in Germany. [p. 90]

Heurich was first and foremost a businessman, loving his work and growing wealthy because of his enterprises. He was also a philanthropist, dedicating considerable sums to good works both in and around Römhild, his old hometown, and Washington. Römhild named him an Ehrenbürger, i.e., an Honorary Citzen, and a street and plaques there recall his generosity. He was also a fun-loving man and long-time member of the Washington Sängerbund, taking part in their carnivals with much good humor.

In 1955, Christian Heurich's widow donated the Heurich Mansion to the Columbia Historical Society (later the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.), which had its headquarters there until it moved to the Carnegie Library Building at Mount Vernon Square in 2003. The Christian Heurich House Museum is now open to the public. The museum's website includes many fascinating details of life in the German-American community in the nation's capital.