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There are no signs, no interpretive plaques, and no dedication plaques. The Summer House is just there, on the Capitol Grounds - a shady, open brick hexagon looking like a ruin from some fort. With the small fountain and a window on a bubbling ‘stream’ it’s a pleasant place, but you’ll wonder what it is. You’ll hear other people wondering out loud what it is. Now you can tell them. And look really smart.
Frederick Law Olmsted designed the Capitol Grounds in the late 1800s. One complaint he kept hearing concerned the lack of water and shade on the trek up Capitol Hill. This building, the Summer House, was his solution. It provided a pleasant place for people to rest, as well as drinking fountains. His plans called for two Summer Houses on the grounds. After this building was completed in 1881, Congress objected to improprieties that might be occurring in such an isolated location on the Capitol Grounds, even though Olmsted purposefully used an open design to discourage such improprieties. Because of Congress’s concerns, the plans for the second Summer House were abandoned.
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