page_title: Adolf Cluss
section_title: Personal life
hierarchical_section_title: Adolf Cluss / Life / Personal life
caption_attribution_description: English: Henrietta de Millas, Sofie de Millas, Adolf Cluss, Julie de Millas, Louis de Millas in Heidelberg, Germany (1898)
context_page_description: Adolf Ludwig Cluss also known as Adolph Cluss was a German-born American immigrant who became one of the most important, influential and prolific architects in Washington, D.C., in the late 19th century, responsible for the design of numerous schools and other notable public buildings in the capital. Today, several of his buildings are still standing. He was also a City Engineer and a Building Inspector for the Board of Public Works. He is believed to have been the only person to have met both Karl Marx and President Ulysses S. Grant.
  Red brick was Cluss' favorite building material; that, and his early communist sympathies, led some to dub him the "Red Architect", though he was a man who in later life became a confirmed Republican.
context_section_description: On February 8, 1859, he married Rosa Schmidt (1835-1894) at Zion Lutheran Church in Baltimore, MD. They lived in a row house at 413 2nd St NW between D St NW and E St NW for thirty-five years. They raised seven children in that house.
  Lillian Cluss: She was born on January 2, 1860. She had married William Daw and lived above the Daw's pharmacy at 23rd and H Street NW. She died on February 16, 1935.
  Anita T. Cluss: She was born on September in 6, 1861. She was a harpist at St. John's Church and in the Georgetown Orchestra. She died on November 25, 1917.
  Adolph S. Cluss: He was born on January 29, 1863. He worked as a clerk for his father. He died in 1886 at the age of 23 of typhoid fever.
  Carl Louis Cluss: He was born on August 14, 1865. He worked as pharmacist. He died 1894 (6 months after his mother) of typhoid fever at the age of 29.
  Flora Maude Cluss: she was born in December 1870. She married Henry S. Lathrop (of New York) on January 21, 1901, and then moved to New York. She died around 1953.
  Robert Cluss: He was born on November 4, 1873. He died in April 1893 at the age of 17 of tuberculosis.
  Richard Basil Cluss: He was born on September 30, 1875.
  His wife died on April 10, 1894 a year after her son Robert of a lengthy respiratory illness. Following the death of Robert, Carl and Rosa Schmidt, Flora and Anita moved to their sister Lillian's house.
  As published in the Evening Star on March 18, 1897, Cluss was on the Delinquent District of Columbia Real Estate Tax List owing $8.41 as of July 1, 1896.
  In the spring and summer of 1898, Cluss traveled to Germany, Italy and Central Europe and visited his older sister's (Caroline De Millas née Cluss) family in Heidelberg, Germany.
  Adolf Cluss died on July 24, 1905, in Washington, D.C., at the age of 80 years. He is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery (Plot: Van Ness, Lot 161 East).
caption: Adolf Cluss (center) with his sister's family, the de Millas in Heidelberg, Germany (1898)
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