George Oakley Totten Jr.

George Oakley Totten Jr. designed the former French embassy at 2460 16th Street, built in 1906-1907 and used as both embassy and ambassador's residence. Its domed corner pavilion, loggias, and mansard roofs brought French architectural references to Meridian Hill. Working for Mary Foote Henderson, he also designed the mansion at 2801 16th Street that Spain later acquired for its ambassador. ^{1, 2}

Totten studied architecture at Columbia University and continued his training in Paris with a McKim Traveling Fellowship. In 1895 he became chief designer in the Treasury Department's Office of the Supervising Architect. He subsequently practiced with Laussat R. Rogers before opening an independent practice in 1907. Henderson's commissions gave him repeated opportunities to design the residences and chanceries she intended for the diplomatic neighborhood. ¹

Other Totten houses acquired diplomatic uses after their original owners left. Hennen Jennings engaged him to design and supervise a Washington mansion constructed in 1906-1907; William Helis later bought it and donated it to Greece after the Second World War. Totten served as president of the American Institute of Architects' Washington chapter in 1927 and died in Washington in 1939. ^{3, 1}