Tudor Place and its garden reflect the growth of Georgetown, the District of Columbia and the nation — along with changes in the lives of the family who lived here and the men and women who were enslaved or servants.

Through six generations of peace and war, nation-building and political upheaval, prosperity and financial hardship, four members of the Peter family owned and preserved the property. Under their stewardship, the gardens evolved from urban agricultural uses to recreational and ornamental purposes, changing along with the wider economy and culture.

The estate reflects a story of family continuity over 178 years, from 1805 to 1983.

The founders’ Georgetown was a center of the tobacco and slave trades as well as other forms of commerce in the thriving port town. The Peters were one of several wealthy families leaving the bustling, densely populated port area — the source of much of their wealth — for newly built mansions or “suburban villas” on the Heights. From there, they enjoyed open views (now mostly obscured by foliage) toward the harbor, the Potomac River, and across it, Virginia.

The Tudor Place landscape began with a combination of ornamental and agrarian uses, worked by an enslaved labor force, including the family’s enslaved gardener Will Twine, in the early years and later by a paid staff of gardeners. Some agricultural uses lasted into the 20th century. By 1960, when Armistead Peter 3rd inherited the site and became its last private owner, the garden was focused on purely recreational purposes.

With careful fidelity to their forebears, each Custis-Peter generation preserved original design elements as well as many of the earliest plantings, while adapting the landscape to their own needs and the changes in the town around them. Consequently, unusual heirloom species dating back a century or more still thrive here, such as the Florentine tulips, grape varieties climbing the North Garden Arbor, and the Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow forget-me-nots.

Other specimens represent more recent adaptation and uses, such as the hardy replacement boxwood planted in the Knot Garden in 2012. Like the site’s towering trees and other plants and shrubs, all of these are gradually being accessioned into the museum’s holdings as a rare living collection.

As you move through the landscape, you will sense the hands of successive owners, shapers and laborers, and experience living history through the variety of plants that continue to grow, evolve and thrive in this landscape.