“Cluss and Schulze planned the renovation of an existing, twenty-year-old duplex for Edward F. Droop. They combined the two houses and added a new front to the combined structure.. Looking back in 1925, a newspaper writer in 1925 described the renovated house “as one of the landmarks of downtown Washington.” Demolished in 1918, the house succumbed to the expansion of commercial activity in the downtown area..Droop had come to Washington in 1857, soon after emigrating from Osnabruck, Germany. He may have met Cluss soon after, and it was through Cluss and his wife Rosa, that Droop met Sophia Schmidt, the younger sister of Rosa Cluss. The two sisters were vocalists who performed together in Washington. Edward and Sophia married in 1867 and lived for a brief period with the Cluss family. Then they moved into the 726 half of the duplex on Twelfth Street. Droop worked at the Metzerott Music Store on Pennsylvania Avenue, which he later acquired. Sophia and Edward had two sons, Edward H. and Carl. As adults, both of them became partners in the music store business. Sophia Droop died in 1874 of tuberculosis. Droop married Anna Schloemann of Baltimore in 1878. They had three daughters. An aunt from Germany also joined the family. Droop enlarged his Twelfth Street house in 1883 to accommodate his much larger family. “
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