In 1850, Thomas Green moved into the mansion and lived there
throughout the Civil War. In the frenzy following the assassination of President Lincoln,
some believed that conspirators had planned to kidnap Lincoln and conceal him in the wine
cellars of the Van Ness Mansion until he could be smuggled across the river to Confederate
soil. Green and his wife were held in prison for six weeks before the rumor was proven
false.
The mansion was finally demolished at the turn of the
century to make way for a building which would house not one family but an entire family
of nations: the House of the Americas.
Construction of the House of the Americas began after the US
Congress awarded the site to the OAS in 1908, establishing the area as international land.
In May of that same year, US President Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the
building in front of an audience of nearly five thousand people. The building was funded
by contributions from the member states of the OAS and a large donation from the famous US
philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.
Architects Albert Kelsey and Paul Cret of Philadelphia were
chosen to design the House of the Americas. Consequently, they were challenged to create a
building which would express the cultural and racial diversity of the Hemisphere. The
result would be "a meeting place in which citizens of all countries of the Americas
felt at home."
