I grew up in D.C. and have fond memories of Friendship House in the late 1940s. It was in Southeast, a block off Pennsylvania Avenue. It was a great place for kids: a quiet room for homework, lessons of all kinds for a quarter. I took piano, tap dance and hula. Do you know the history of this house and is it still there?

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       — Barbara Thompson, Southern Maryland

       As a matter of fact, the house that Friendship House was in still exists, even if the charity that was Friendship House no longer does.

       When it was completed in 1796, the Georgian-style house — on South Carolina Avenue, though its address today is 619 D St. SE — was known as the Maples. Merchant William Mayne Duncanson, the original owner, speculated that land in the new capital would increase in value. But he miscalculated and wound up bankrupt.

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       “So he wasn’t actually resident in the house that long,” said Nancy Metzger, a neighborhood historian who lives two blocks away.

       According to a Society of Architectural Historians Archipedia post by Pamela Scott and Antoinette J. Lee, “Subsequent owners included Francis Scott Key and [U.S. Capitol artist] Constantino Brumidi, who decorated a ballroom addition with his own frescoes.”

       In 1936, the Maples was purchased by Friendship House, which tasked District architect Horace W. Peaslee with enlarging it to 55 rooms and adapting it for use by the charity.

       Friendship House was a settlement house, one of many that popped up across the country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The best known was Hull House in Chicago, co-founded by social reformer Jane Addams. These were places that aimed to improve the lives of the urban poor by serving their needs, both physical and intellectual.

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       Founded in 1904, Friendship House was originally at 324 Virginia Ave. SE. A 1913 article in the Washington Evening Star outlined some of the activities there: “At Friendship House, girls are taught scientific housekeeping and practical home hygiene and sanitation to enable them to be able to maintain healthful, well-kept homes in the future, and there are other classes where girls are being taught music, sewing, embroidering and other things which will make them happier and more useful.”

       Day care was available, too, a rarity at the time. Explained the Star: “Mothers who have work to do, or who are sick, are invited to leave their children at Friendship House during the day, and even at night, in case of sickness.”

       Milk was sold at reduced rates. Friendship House was used by neighborhood adults for meetings. It was also home to a branch library.

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       Chief among the workers at Friendship House in 1913 was Lydia Burklin, a native Washingtonian who had joined the staff in 1909. By the time of her retirement in 1954 at age 70, Burklin was the director, overseeing a staff of 14, along with part-timers and volunteers.

       In 1936, Friendship House moved to the larger Maples.

       “Capitol Hill at that time had a lot of people who were workers at the Navy Yard and the Government Printing Office,” said Metzger. “A lot of people came down from West Virginia and there were a lot of immigrants.”

       Blue-collar newcomers to the city needed help establishing themselves here. That’s what Friendship House provided. While some settlement houses were connected with religions, Friendship House was nondenominational.

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       It was also, like so much of the city, segregated: for Whites only. Friendship House wasn’t integrated until after the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education ruling in 1954.

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       Activities at Friendship House evolved over the years. But old buildings are notoriously expensive to maintain. Many an organization has faltered trying to stay on top of the upkeep. Out of money and having defaulted on a loan, Friendship House had to sell the Maples in 2010.

       It was purchased by Virginia-based Altus Realty, which transformed the 1796 house and its many later additions into 19 condos.

       As construction was underway, Metzger had a chance to visit the site. Propped up in one of the rooms was an oil portrait of a matronly Lydia Burklin, who died in 1964 at age 80.

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       A worker later asked Metzger if she could take the painting for safekeeping. She did, assuming there would be some lobby or common space to which it could be returned.

       “Well, there isn't,” she told Answer Man. “So I still have this portrait sitting in my living room.”

       Metzger is hoping a new home can be found for Lydia.

       Next week: Washington’s African-American community supported its own settlement houses.