John,

However, the _address_ (URL) of the website is sent to the DNS in the
clear,

Normally the domain name is also send in the clear in the first datablock of
an (attempted) SSL handshake ...

Afaik it /can/ be switched off*, but don't ask me how I would do that on my
FireFox v52 browser (if anyone knows feel free to tell me).

*but that could create problems when, IIRC, the actual domain is on a shared
hosting, or simply behind load-balancers and the like.

In other words, its not only the DNS request that needs to be updated.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser