Meridian International Center

Established in 1960, the Meridian International Center is a non-profit and non-partisan organization whose mission is to promote "engagement between the United States and the world through diplomacy, leadership and culture to solve shared global challenges." The name "meridian" is derived from the center's location along the geographic meridian of the city. The center's campus consists of two adjacent historic former residences, the Meridian House and the White-Meyer House. Diplomat Irwin B. Laughlin (1871-1941), who served as ambassador to Greece and Spain, built the Meridian House in 1923. His colleague and friend Henry White (1850-1927) built the White-Meyer House in 1912 and served as ambassador to Italy to France. Famed architect John Russell Pope (1874-1937), the designer of the National Archives and Records Administration building, the National Art Gallery, and the Jefferson Memorial, designed both homes. Meridian International acquired the Meridian House in 1960 and the White-Meyer House in 1987. Both are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Meridian House

Irwin B. Laughlin was born in Pennsylvania and attended Yale University, graduating in 1893. He got a job at a steel company cofounded by his grandfather and served as treasurer for three years. In 1903, he joined the Foreign Service and during his career served in a number of diplomatic positions around the world including in Japan, Thailand, and France. He built the Meridian House in 1919 on the property he bought in 1912. Pope designed the house in the Beaux-Arts style. It was renovated in 1994 but still contains original decorative features including antique brass and lighting fixtures. The house also features original family furnishings and Laughlin's collection fo 18th-century French drawings and oriental porcelains and screens. Laughlin served as ambassador to Greece from 1924 to 1926, and as ambassador to Spain from 1929 to 1933. He died in 1941, leaving a wife and two children.

White-Meyer House

Henry White was born in Baltimore to a wealthy family. Unfortunately, his father died when he was three and as a result, White spent most of his childhood at his maternal grandparent's estate, Hampton, which is located in Towson, Maryland and is a National Historic Landmark. His mother remarried in 1866 and the family moved to France. He was largely educated by his mother who encouraged him to learn European languages. White's career began in 1883 when he obtained a position at the U.S. Legation in Vienna. The next year he was transferred to the U.S. Legation in London, where he remained for 20 years. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him as ambassador to Italy in 1905, and then ambassador to France in 1907. Although he retired in 1909, the next year President William McKinley appointed him as the head of the U.S. delegation to the Pan-American Conference and as Special Ambassador to the Centennial Celebration of Chilean Independence. He was also one of five American Commissioners to the Paris Peace Conference in 1918 at the end of World War I to negotiate a treaty (the Treaty of Versailles) with Germany. White earned a reputation as a highly skilled diplomat during his career. President Roosevelt, who knew White since the 1880s, considered him his most trusted diplomat.

White purchased the property on which the house stands in 1910, shortly after his ambassadorship in France ended. Construction was completed in 1912. Pope's design of the house combines Georgian Revival and Italian Renaissance styles. Built of brick, notable features include a limestone lion mask fountain with a sarcophagus basin, a main entrance portico with eight pedestaled columns, and decorative limestone trim.

The house was the site of important diplomatic activities and social gatherings of political elites. During World War I, White allowed a French delegation led by Marshall Joseph Joffre and French Prime Minister René Viviani to use it during an official visit in April 1917. It was at the house that the U.S., France, and Britain developed and agreed to military and naval cooperation plans that were used during the war. In the early 1920s, several dignitaries visited the house including President Warren Harding, former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, and British Lord Robert Cecil. These gatherings continued under the next owner of the house, Eugene Meyer, who owned the Washington Post. Eleanor Roosevelt, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and Senators Robert and Edward Kennedy were frequent guests at the house.

After Meyer's wife died in 1970, the house became the property of the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation. Two year later, the Antioch School of Law leased it and appears to have remained until 1987 when Meridian International bought it.

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"Henry White (1850-1927)." Office of the Historian. Accessed October 26, 2022. https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/white-henry.

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