The American Center or the former United States Chancery are currently used as the offices of

USAid The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an agency of the United States government that has been responsible for administering civilian United States foreign aid, foreign aid and development assistance. Established in 19 ...

Colombo Colombo, ( ; , ; , ), is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. The Colombo metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 within the municipal limits. It is the ...

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

. The building is located on Galle Road,

History

The building was originally built by

J. H. Meedeniya Rajakaruna Senanayaka Panditha Herath Wasala Kuruppu Mudiyanse Ralahamillage Punchi Banda John Henry Meedeniya (''known as J. H. Meedeniya Adigar '') (1867 - 1931) was a Ceylonese legislator and a headmen. He was the Kandyan Sinhalese member of ...

Adigar The Mahâ Adigâr () (also known as Adikārama, Adikār) was a Great Officer in the Amātya Mandalaya, or Sinhalese Council of State, in the Sinhala Kingdom, Sinhalese Kingdoms of monarchical Sri Lanka. The office was second in power and dignity ...

, which he named ''Rickman House''. It was the home of

D. R. Wijewardena Don Richard Wijewardena (Sinhala language, Sinhala:දොන් රිච්ඩ් විජෙවර්ධන) (23 February 1886 – 13 June 1950) was a Sri Lankan media proprietor who was involved in the Sri Lankan independence movement. A s ...

(the founder of the Lake House newspaper group), who married Meedeniya's eldest daughter Alice. The property is relatively unique as its land title, under the original old Dutch deed, extends down to the ocean, only one of a few such cases in Colombo. In 1903 the building was purchased by Wijewardena's mother, Helena, who subsequently demolished the existing residence and rebuilt a new dwelling, ''Sri Ramya''. The new dwelling was designed by Herbert Henry Reid. Wijewardena occupied the residence until her death in 1940. In May 1934, the Indian poet,

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...

and the Indian painter,

Nandalal Bose Nandalal Bose (3 December 1882 – 16 April 1966) was one of the pioneers of modern Indian art and a key figure of Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism, Contextual Modernism. A pupil of Abanindranath Tagore, Bose was known for his ...

, stayed at the house for a fortnight, when Tagore brought a troupe of

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

dancers to Ceylon. In 1951 the building was purchased by the Government of the United States to serve as the

chancery Chancery may refer to: Offices and administration * Court of Chancery, the chief court of equity in England and Wales until 1873 ** Equity (law), also called chancery, the body of jurisprudence originating in the Court of Chancery ** Courts of e ...

of its

Embassy A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a Sovereign state, state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase ...

in Sri Lanka. It functioned in that capacity until the United States Embassy moved to a new premises in 1984 and the building was transferred to USAid, for use as their offices.Re: George Vanderspar
/ref>

References

USAid Sri Lanka
{{Diplomatic missions in Sri Lanka Diplomatic missions in Sri Lanka Defunct diplomatic missions of the United States Diplomatic residences in Colombo Sri Lanka–United States relations British colonial architecture in Sri Lanka Wijewardena family

History

See also

References