When Mrs. Francis B. Moran, Jane to her friends, leased her sprawling Embassy Row mansion to the Hoover administration for use as their campaign headquarters in 1928, it raised some eyebrows. After all, she had spent years boosting for various Democratic causes, and hosting authors that some today might identify as having a “liberal agenda.” In reporting on the rental, The Washington Post noted the socialite’s “former ardent Democratic sympathies.”
Perhaps the 50-room George Totten-designed building, which Moran had built more than a decade after her husband’s death, was too large for her. Maybe she had become spooked when her seven-passenger touring car was stolen from the garage in 1916. Or perhaps an incident in 1923, when she and her small dog Duke were imprisoned in the home’s elevator, requiring seven electricians, engineers, and mechanics to take the contraption apart, only after representatives from the Potomac Electric Power Company and the elevator’s manufacturer had been summoned, was what finally prompted her to move. Or perhaps Moran, like many women of her time whose homes today stand as embassies, simply recognized the value of being a landlady.
Over the next century, the mansion at 2315 Massachusetts Avenue would be the home of Lord and Lady Reading, the British High Commissioner; the headquarters for the Chinese delegation to the international conference on the limitation of armament; the home of the Turkish Ambassador, (now officially just around Sheridan Circle), and the site of the first Iranian embassy, then known as Persia.
In 1950, it was purchased by Pakistan.
The mansion at 2315 Massachusetts Avenue was not the first building in Washington to fly the Pakistan flag. That honor went to 2343 S St NW, purchased by Pakistan in 1948. Built in August 1909, a building permit was granted for one two-story brick dwelling with an approximate cost of $3,100. By the time the home was sold in 1923, it was a four-story semi-detached residence.
An article about an attempted burglary of the residence in 1929 noted the home was “close to the former Hoover home and opposite Mrs. Woodrow Wilson’s.” The home changed hands again in 1932 after a series of financial hardships for the current owner, for the sum of $75,000. In March 1948, it sold to Pakistan for its chancery with The Washington Post noting, “The staff is still looking for a suitable house for an embassy.”
That suitable house was found around the corner, at 2201 R St., the site of a bitter neighborhood dispute when the Diplomatic Affairs Foundation proposed purchasing the building for a new library. The Board of Zoning Adjustment ruled that the “proposed library for study of international affairs would adversely affect the present character and future development” of the residential neighborhood. Instead, it became the embassy.
On October 10, 1950, with the residence and embassy secured, Pakistan purchased the Moran house. Rumor is the country won it in a chess match. But, like the Canadians swear their embassy wasn’t a gift for helping with the Canadian Caper, I’m assured Pakistan purchased 2315 Massachusetts Avenue. Either way, the deed is on file with the city just the same.
The R Street property stayed the embassy until 2003 when Pakistan moved into the International Chancery Center in Van Ness. By 2008, it was listed in a report in The Washington Post on “vacant embassies in decay.” There were “unlicensed cars in the rear courtyard, overgrown shrubbery, cracked pavement, trash and empty liquor bottles.”
When I toured the Pakistan properties in the fall of 2022, R Street was not on the schedule. In December 2022, in the midst of an economic crisis that saw frequent power outages throughout Pakistan and growing unrest in Balochistan, it was listed for sale.
In response to questions from Diplomatica, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, sent the following statement: “The building in question was smaller of the two buildings in which the Embassy of Pakistan was situated in the past and had become vacant in 2003 when the Embassy moved to new premises. The sale of the property had become important as not only was it vacant and in disrepair but also because the building no longer enjoyed diplomatic status and was subject to local building and taxation regulations. The Government of Pakistan has therefore decided, after a thorough inter-ministerial process, that the property will be sold in an open bidding process fulfilling all codal and legal formalities.”
Despite the widespread evidence of squatters, extensive graffiti and general dilapidation, bids were rumored to top $6 million US. As of January 2023, no sale is final.
The Moran house also sits empty.
There’s the sense that something was here once; ornamental doors, an expansive drive, an empty flagpole. The flag that was here was taken down to replace the one at the residence that had become tattered. (DC weather, I’ve been told by other embassies, is uniquely murder on flags.) And like all grand empty buildings, this one lends itself to imagination – a grand ballroom, a winding staircase, a top-floor alcove perfect for writing a novel.
It’s been empty for five years, Maliha Shahid, the embassy’s spokesperson tells me as we walk through. The country tried to rent it, but the economy, the pandemic, made it a challenge. There are plans now to turn it into a cultural center.
But like the woman whose name is synonymous with the building, the Pakistan embassy would be willing to rent the building to the right tenant. After all, another presidential campaign is always just around the corner, and there has to be a manual to that elevator around here somewhere.