First a school for boys and then for girls, Stanmore was part of the legacy of Benjamin Hallowell. In 1858 he donated the land for the school to his daughter Caroline H. Miller and her husband Francis, and for two decades it taught and boarded an elite student body. Caroline Miller was the noted suffragette, and Francis was a prominent Washington lawyer. At the time of World War I Stanmore became the home of the Thomas Hyde family. Destroyed by fire about two decades ago, it stood across from the present Olney Theatre.