Brainard Warner

Brainard Warner (May 20, 1847 – May 17, 1916) was a prominent businessman and land developer in the Washington, D.C., area, best known for founding Kensington, Maryland.[1]

Warner was born on May 20, 1847, in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. In 1863, he went to Washington and enlisted in the United States Army. He served as a government clerk in 1866, studied law under Thaddeus Stevens, and traveled around the American West as a newspaper correspondent. In 1869, he graduated from Columbian College Law School in Washington.[1]

Warner entered the real estate business; he would ultimately build more than 1,000 houses in Washington.[1] In 1878, the offices of his firm, the B.H. Warner Company, were at 916 F Street NW.[2][3]

In 1887, he established the Columbia National Bank[4] at 911 F Street NW; it would operate independently until 1946[5] and is today part of Bank of America.[6][7][8] In 1889, he founded Washington Loan and Trust Company at 900 F Street NW;[9] it was acquired by Riggs Bank in 1954 and is now part of PNC Financial Services. He was also a director of numerous other banks.

As Warner's interest turned to banking, he relinquished daily control of his real estate company, which continued to prosper. In 1907, the Washington Post would describe it as possibly the largest real-estate brokerage in the city.[10]

In 1890, Warner bought 132 acres of farmland south of Knowles Station, a village along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Metropolitan Branch line in Montgomery County, Maryland. He subdivided it and sold lots along curving streets, aiming to create a suburb to evoke the district around Kensington Gardens in London. The B&O soon built a station to serve the developing area.[11]

In 1892, he built a Victorian mansion on the 4.5-acre oval at the heart of his subdivision as a retreat for his family from Washington. He entertained grandly, hosting congressmen, senators, and once, President William Howard Taft.[12] In 1910, his daughter Mary would wed in the house.[13]

In the early 1890s, he helped start the Belt Line Railroad in Baltimore, Maryland.[1] In 1894, Warner and others chartered the Chevy Chase Lake & Kensington Railway, a three-mile streetcar line, to connect the newly incorporated town of Kensington to downtown Washington, D.C., some eight miles south, via the Rock Creek Railway streetcar line.[14]

Around 1900, Warner was serving as vice president of the Washington Public Library board of trustees when he "seized on a chance meeting with Andrew Carnegie" to ask him to fund public libraries in the city. Carnegie ultimately funded four, starting with the central library at Mount Vernon Square.[15] Opened in 1903, the library was the city's first desegregated public building.[16]

In 1906, Warner ran unsuccessfully to represent Maryland in the House of Representatives.[17]

Warner died in his home at 10 East Kirke Street[18] in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on May 17, 1916, several days after being stricken with paralysis.[1] He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C.[18]

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Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e "B.H. Warner Succumbs". The News. 1916-05-18. p. 8. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  2. ^ "For Sale—Lots". The Washington Post. 1878-05-25. p. 4. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  3. ^ "Map of the City of Washington, District of Columbia". Map produced by James L. Kervand for B.H. Warner (Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons). 1886.
  4. ^ "The Brain and Energy of City's Progessive Real Estate Brokers". The Washington Post. 1907-02-24. pp. [Blank]. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  5. ^ "Columbia Bank Opens Tomorrow as Branch of American Security". Evening Star. 1946-12-01. p. 40. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  6. ^ "ANATOMY OF A SUCCESSFUL MERGER". The Washington Post. 1987-10-12. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  7. ^ "Nationsbank exercises option, takes over MNC Financial for $1.36 billion - UPI Archives". UPI. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  8. ^ "NationsBank, BankAmerica Seal Merger". Los Angeles Times. 1998-10-01. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  9. ^ "Washington Loan and Trust Company - This 1890s office building is one of DC's most impressive Romanesque Revival buildings". DC Historic Sites. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  10. ^ In 1904, the company was renamed Swartzell, Rheem, and Hensey after its active partners. The firm, which once boasted that no investor had lost money in half a century, would collapse in 1931 amid the Great Depression. Thousands of Washingtonians lost their money. One of the partners was convicted of fraud-related charges and sentenced to seven years in prison."The Brain and Energy of City's Progessive Real Estate Brokers". The Washington Post. 1907-02-24. pp. [Blank]. Retrieved 2025-11-26.
  11. ^ "Town History". Kensington Historical Society. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  12. ^ "Warner Manor / 10231 Carroll Place". Kensington Historical Society. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  13. ^ "Warner-Cook wedding". The Washington Post. 1910-11-24. p. 7. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  14. ^ "Town History – Kensington Historical Society". Archived from the original on 2024-01-14. Retrieved 2023-06-09.
  15. ^ "HISTORIC PRESERVATION REVIEW BOARD APPLICATION FOR HISTORIC LANDMARK OR HISTORIC DISTRICT DESIGNATION / Southeast Branch Library" (PDF). DC Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved September 26, 2025.
  16. ^ O'Connell, Jonathan (September 21, 2016). "Apple targets historic Carnegie Library for downtown flagship store". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  17. ^ "The Third Place » Spotlight on Wheaton's Black History | MontgomeryPlanning.org". montgomeryplanning.org. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
  18. ^ a b "Brainard H. Warner Is Called by Death". Evening Star. 1916-05-17. p. 3. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
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