Guide conducts a tour of Clara Barton’s House in Glen Echo, Maryland, Clara Barton National Historic Site

Tours of the lower floor of Clara Barton’s house in Glen Echo, Maryland, are conducted on Fridays and Saturdays year-round. The 45-minute tours start at the top of each hour beginning at 1 PM, with the last tour at 4 PM. There is no charge and no need to register unless you have a group of twelve or more people. If that’s the case, call (301) 320-1400 to make a reservation. Keep in mind that times can always change, so be sure to get the current schedule on the National Park Service’s Things to Do web page for Clara Barton National Historic Site.

The Clara Barton House was closed in 2015 for safety reasons. The house was partially reopened (first floor only) in 2022 after a minimal restoration, and a full restoration is in the works for the second half of the 2020s. I visited just before the closure in 2015 and again in 2025, and in truth, this house is in such bad condition that it really just needs to be torn down and the money allocated to other National Park projects. As far as I can tell, in the eight years that it was closed for renovation, the only work done was just to keep it from falling down. With budget cuts, I seriously doubt any work will be done this decade, but I could be wrong. If so, when the restoration is completed, the upper floors should be open to visitors, and the furniture that was in the house prior to 2015 will be returned.

View of the upper floors of the Clara Barton House, Clara Barton National Historic Site

Stained glass Red Cross doors on the upper floor balcony of the Clara Barton House in Glen Echo, Maryland

The tour of the Clara Barton House is still informative and highly enjoyable, but the rooms are now empty aside from rugs, lamps, a few odd and ends, and informational panels with historical photos that show what the rooms once looked like.

Room in the Clara Barton House that was once used as a Red Cross office, Clara Barton National Historic Site

Front foyer of Clara Barton’s house, Clara Barton National Historic Site

Front and rear parlors of the Clara Barton House, Clara Barton National Historic Site

Main hallway of the Clara Barton House, Clara Barton National Historic Site

When furnished, the house is decorated with a mixture of Barton’s possessions and period antiques and reproductions from the 1897-1904 time period, the years the house was used not only as Barton’s residence, but also as the headquarters for the American Red Cross. After Barton died in 1912, the house was willed to her long time associate Dr. Julian Hubbell. He got mixed up with a con-artist who claimed she was in contact with Barton from the afterlife and that Barton wanted Hubbell to give the house and property to her, which he did. Hubbell instigated a ten-year lawsuit against the lady, but not before all of the furnishings had been sold off. He eventually won the lawsuit in 1927 and regained title to the property. Items were returned over the years, but only a dozen or so furniture pieces can be verified as actually having belonged to Barton. Overall, about a third of the items that are part of Clara Barton National Historic Site are original.

After Hubbell died in 1929, the house went to his nieces. They turned the bottom floor into a Clara Barton museum and rented out the rest of the rooms to help pay for the upkeep. It was sold in 1942 to Josephine Noyes, who continued to use it as a boarding house. In 1963, the non-profit organization Friends of Clara Barton was able to purchase the house, and when the Federal government created Clara Barton National Historic Site in 1975, the house and furnishings were sold to the government.

The following video covers the history of Clara Barton’s Glen Echo house. For an even more informative video, see the Clara Barton National Historic Site video on C-Span.