Chapter Nine: The Case of the Ingenious A
Chapter Nine: The Case of the Ingenious A 116. Law's 1800 house became the fulcrum of the New Varnum Hotel Thomas Law had a design in hand a few months before the General, and almost a year before John Tayloe III. Even though the two designs were radically different, Glenn Brown decided that Thornton designed Tayloe's Octagon and the two boarding houses the General built on Capitol Hill. One hundred years later, because both Law's and Tayloe's houses had oval rooms, C. M. Harris decided that Thornton also designed Law's house. Law could have been a central figure forwarding Thornton's fame. His wife Eliza gave him entree to Mount Vernon, and the General respected his enthusiasm for the federal city. If Law had settled on a design drawn by Thornton, he would have told the General. If the General was impressed by what Thornton drew for his two houses, the General would have told Tayloe. Law hardly knew Tayloe, but the General doted on the son of an old and very...