"Gift for the Kennedy Center"

Christian Heurich made his fortune in brewing and real estate, then shared it through philanthropy and support for Washington's arts and culture. That legacy reaches all the way to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The land where his brewery once stood was, in part, donated to create it.

The arts found a home on the brewery land even earlier. When the Chr. Heurich Brewing Co. closed in 1956, Arena Stage converted the brewery's hall into a 500-seat theater-in-the-round called "The Old Vat," a nod to the giant kettles. Plays were staged there for five years, until the brewery and all its buildings were torn down in 1961.

That was just the beginning of the site's creative life. When the Kennedy Center broke ground there in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson described it as "a living force for the encouragement of arts…. [an] ambitious program.” 

By 1965, the Federal government’s National Capital Planning Commission had acquired nearly all the land needed for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, but it lacked the funds to buy one of the last remaining plots: the old Heurich brewery site. 

On June 23, 1965, Christian Heurich Jr., Anita Heurich Eckles, and Karla Heurich Harrison, donated the land, a $150,000 gift (over $1.5 million in 2026). In return they received a memorial box in the Concert Hall, now Box 30. Christian Jr. told the Evening Star the gift "was appropriate to the memory of his parents because they had been interested in Washington cultural life and especially enjoyed concerts and operas." 

Throughout his years as a DC resident, Christian never had a vote in a presidential election. His one ballot was cast for Ulysses S. Grant in 1868, back when he lived in Kansas. Heurich considered himself a proud American and he hung portraits of Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson in his home. While his descendants held a range of political beliefs, all of them were philanthropists. All three Heurich children are remembered in their obituaries for donating land to the Kennedy Center and for their many other investments in local civic spaces.

Today, the Heurich House Museum is proud to carry that spirit forward in support of DC arts and culture. We welcome new ideas about how to dream for the future of our country, look critically at the American Dream and who gets to achieve it, open our doors to performers, artists, and makers of all backgrounds, and explore the lives of everyone who passed through this space over the last 135 years.

Photos: “Kennedy Center Gets Land Gift.” The Evening Star, 23 June 1965.