Engine Co. #20 Washington, D. C.
- Name: Tenleytown Firehouse
- Year Built: 1900; 1913 - addition
- Architect: Leon E. Dessez; Snowdon Ashford - addition
Tenleytown Firehouse was designed by Leon Dessez in the Italianate style.
Though rectangular in plan, from the front the original building looked like a foursquare.
The original materials were buff colored brick and barrel tile for the roof. There were four periods of firehouse construction prior to WWII.
Tenleytown Firehouse was built in the third of these, 1898-WWI, when firehouses were generally freestanding, located on main thoroughfares and with a one of a kind design.
Tenley Firehouse is the second oldest of the nineteen pre-World War II firehouses still fulfilling their original use, and prior to partial demolition preparatory to expansion had the oldest intact interior.
The bay built in 1913 to accommodate a motorized hook and ladder has been razed.
(Listed in DC Inventory of Historic Sites, 2002)
