Shotgun Domicile: Speed Decorating in the District

By Beth Herman

On your mark, get set, go! It’s like a round of speed dating: learning all you can about a candidate, usually over a 10-minute glass of wine, before moving on to the next table. Those who’ve done it say an uber-sized glass of Pinot Grigio helps, but knowing the right questions to ask will get you what you want.

For interior designer Beverly Glover-Wood, of Glover-Wood Interiors, the right questions came in handy as the speed part remained, though the “dating” word became “decorating” (sans the wine) when the call came from a proper Bostonian. Poised to head up a D.C. commission with an eight-week countdown to lift-off, the client needed a home in the District fast. Choosing an apartment in the Penn Quarter’s prized Lansburgh, 425 8^th Street NW, she would be spending six years in Washington in her new role and abode, though jetting home to her old life, family and friends in Boston on weekends whenever possible.

“I had a commission to do this quickly and not too expensively,” Glover-Wood said of the relatively temporary 744 s.f. residence, affirming the client would be maintaining dual households for the duration of her term. Noting that typical decorating protocol involves time to get to know the client—perhaps even shopping with her, a tight schedule in another city precluded this. “We had one conversation where she talked about what she liked,” the designer said, which was articulated by the two of them combing through catalogues. Preferring “clean and simple,” Glover-Wood said her client did not want this objective manifested in a severe environment, but rather a shabby chic look– slipcovers and comfort so she could just come home, relax and get away for a while.

In true stopwatch form, Glover-Wood did a quick run-through of all the places people shop in the District where things can be obtained relatively quickly. With Pottery Barn, Crate ‘n Barrel, Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams, Ballard Designs, Upscale Resale, Home Goods and Room & Board topping the list, Glover-Wood peppered her client with dozens of photographs she’d taken on a spin through each venue (Ballard’s was strictly catalogue and web, however). The final design was determined to include a red, yellow and blue palette “to keep it cheery and soft,” with the client’s favorite sage green reflected in bathroom features and a feminine bedroom desk.

Deliver dilemma

With furniture choices taking anywhere from 7 days to 12 weeks to ship (predicated on in-stock colors vs. other design requests, Glover-Wood explained), and in an effort to expedite things under the circumstances, the outgoing tenant offered to leave behind his furniture, with the designer choosing what was suitable and donating the rest to D.C. nonprofit organization A Wider Circle. Though a remaining sleigh bed was to be the focal point of the bedroom, the client wasn’t thrilled with the furniture in general because it was all very dark, Glover-Wood said. The challenge, then, was to involve selecting light and lively fabrics, lighting, art and other pieces to offset the space’s existing complexion. At the proverbial 11th hour, however, the dark bedroom pieces went too, opening the bedroom to prettier possibilities but leaving even less time to fill it.

Accordingly, the designer found an antique white headboard from Pier 1 Imports. A Terrific Trio glass top table was obtained from Ballard Designs, with a cloth cover in "celery" from their fabric selection. A white wicker desk and chair for under $50 from Upscale Resale were spray painted deep hunter green, with the desk also serving as a bedside table (Glover-Wood said the client appreciated having a desk tucked into the bedroom). Two framed prints of old Harper's Bazaar magazine covers flank the head of the bed, and a voluminous window dressing and ruffled shams add elegance and tranquility to the space.

In the 273 s.f. living/dining space, Glover-Wood purchased a table and chairs from HomeDecorator.com and consulted with Ballard’s to acquire two bamboo folding chairs in a tortoise shell hue for extra seating. In the compact but adequate 80 s.f. kitchen, a bar encircles the room and faces the dining room, and a couple of bar chairs will effectively utilize the space.

Though two sofas were left behind by the previous tenant, they were donated and a sleeper sofa from Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams (winners, according to Glover-Wood, in the “how fast can you ship?” contest) was obtained to accommodate occasional visits from the client’s two 20-something children. A floral rug in front of the sofa with reds and oranges from Home Goods reflects the wood hue of the dining room chairs, knitting together the two spaces.

Over the dining room table, a standard chandelier with adequate light remained and a large glass slider channels abundant light throughout the living/dining space. “I think lighting is pretty inexpensive as it is, but you want it to be decent,” Glover-Wood said of the question of fixtures and lighting accessories, adding one can purchase a good lamp for $125. To that end, she explained a lot of really inexpensive lighting has low wattage, which inhibits reading, so she opted to spend a little more for two substantial reading lamps and a floor lamp.

Revealing there are buried (and not-so-buried) treasures in D.C. and Maryland consignment shops such as Gallery St. Elmo and Upscale Resale, Glover-Wood said she frequents those entities for furniture, accessories and art. Decorative plates for the kitchen wall were discovered on one particular expedition, and suitable art was obtained from Capital Consignment, as well as Ballard’s and Art.com.

“The client had a wonderful attitude, saying all she really needed was a bed,” Glover-Wood said of the mandate to design like Nike: the goddess of strength and speed. “Hers was surely a unique situation, but overall if you’re coming in and trying to set up quickly, especially as young people often do, it’s nice to know about all of these places you can go.”

GW to Demolish Last of Pennsylvania Avenue Rowhouses

George Washington University plans to demolish a group of historic townhouses along Pennsylvania Avenue, dating back to 1910, to make way for a large office building designed by Gensler.  The townhouses are nearly the last remaining historic real estate fronting Pennsylvania, excepting the Mexican Embassy. The six properties to be demolished from 2134 - 2142 Pennsylvania Ave., include tenants the Froggy Bottom Pub, Panda Cafe, Mehran, and Thai Place. 

The area lies just outside the Foggy Bottom Historic District, and the buildings are not "landmarked" as historic, so no historic review is required. A GW spokesman said "The 2007 Foggy Bottom Campus Plan included a historic preservation plan... During that process, the properties were examined and were determined not be historically significant." Convenient.  GW's idea is to create a sizable development akin to the recently completed Square 54 - located just west, at 2200 Pennsylvania Avenue - a $250-million, 2.6-acre development of GW-owned land developed by Boston Properties. 

For this project, GW would create a similar stream of revenue by again partnering with a third-party real estate developer responsible for developing, leasing and managing the building, creating income for GW through office and/or retail leases. GW media relations affirmed, "The future space will be commercial property with the potential for retail at street level along Pennsylvania Avenue. While similar in type of redevelopment, it will be on a much smaller scale than The Avenue/[Square 54]." The large building at 2100 Pennsylvania Avenue, now occupied by Kaiser Permanente, would be partially demolished, with the east portion left intact, and the west portion expunged. Kaiser intends to vacate the building in October of 2012. 

The glassy design by Gensler will be 11 stories and 130' tall, with an additional 3 floors below grade for 178 parking spaces, resulting in a total of 255,550 s.f., and will target LEED Gold upon completion. The University anticipates filing an application with the Zoning Commission early next year in order to modify what was approved for the site in the overarching Planned Unit Development "2007 Foggy Bottom Campus Plan" and increase by 40' in height and 45,000 s.f. the remaining building at 2100 Pennsylvania Avenue. An initial presentation of the project was given to ANC 2A this past Wednesday, and a second trip to the ANC should take place early next year. A Zoning hearing could come in the summer of 2012. The university aims to begin construction in early 2014.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Jair Lynch's 15th and V Street Apartment Approved by HPRB

Jair Lynch Development Partners' 9-story apartment at 15th and V Street, NW, in the U Street District, was given the go-ahead by the Historic Preservation Review Board this morning, after lead designer Sungjin Cho with WDG Architecture presented a new design (above) reflecting the changes that the Board had requested in September.

The apartment's original design (below) has been tweaked to become more sympathetic in scale to the surrounding historic district. In order to do so, WDG increased the percentage of masonry (to glass) on the facade, reduced the height of the corner tower (by one foot on V Street and 4 feet on 15th), decreased the size of all windows, created slimmer bay projections (by a foot-and-a-half), and added more masonry between the ground-floor glass and the tower. Two kinds of glass will now be used in the bays, clear and "fritted" (i.e. enameled).

Included in the development will be two levels of underground parking, 95 apartments - 87 market rate units and 8 subsidized (at 50 to 80% of AMI) - a fitness room, club room, shared interior courtyard, and roof deck.

The property, located at 2005 15th Street, will overtake an existing parking lot that serves the adjacent Paul Laurence Dunbar Apartment (formerly Campbell Heights) at 2001 15th Street, a 10-story, 171-unit apartment designated as affordable senior housing, which is property owned in large part by Jair Lynch. Lynch acquired majority ownership of the Dunbar apartment last year - as the website states - after having "structured a complex package of debt and equity totaling $43.3 million to facilitate the rehabilitation of the property." According to the U Street Neighborhood Association, "The [15th and V Street] project subsidizes a portion of the renovation work being performed on the ... Paul Laurence Dunbar Apartments."

Washington D.C. real estate development news

A Candyland Vegas, Built inside the District

One way to remind the local real estate industry that your architecture firm is a DC-based business is to create a memorable community event, and then invite industry professionals to be an integral part of it. That's what David M. Schwarz Architects did five years ago. "We were having a conversation about something that we could do to remind the architectural community in DC that we're here," explained DMSAS' marketing director Katie Garrett. "We are a DC firm and have been the entirety of our 33 years." As the architects sat around a table in their firm on L Street, in Farragut North, in the late fall of 2006, an idea stuck - Gingertown, a master planned community constructed in the delicious coppery brown of gingerbread, festooned with the arc of candy cane streetlamps, the shimmer of foil-wrapped chocolates, and the flare of gum drops. 

Given the global nature of most of David M. Schwarz's work, there was a time period where "we weren't doing any work locally," said Garrett. "People were forgetting about us here in DC, especially among the younger architecture community... we wanted to remind them that we are here. This is our home, where we live and work. We wanted to make it something fun." Gingerbread lends itself to amateur architectural creations in kitchens around the world, why not get architects together to create on a miniature scale, and give the proceeds to charity. It worked, the event has been snowballing since its creation, and DMSAS has seen an uptick in work in the DC area. 

The first year of Gingertown brought in $300 for each charity. Last year, charities received around $700. And this year, seven DC-area charities will receive over $1000 each. The recipients are all, "DC institutions," said Garrett. "We wanted to support the organizations that support our community" - My Sister's Place, Children's National Medical Center, Martha's Table, So Others Might Eat, St. Elizabeth's, Washington Home, and the Wendt Center. With a master plan laid out by David M. Schwarz, anyone from the building industry - architects, engineers, construction firms, etc. - was invited to gather a team, claim a site (for free) and spend four hours one candy-coated night creating a gingerbread structure alongside numerous industry professionals. This year's theme is "Elf Vegas," and plots are strung along a miniature Las Vegas Strip, offering up sites with clever names such as, the M&M Grand, Hershey's Excali-bar, and The Marshmellagio. 

Due to a flood of interest this year, DMSAS just recently expanded the master plan to accommodate everyone, and there will be 45 sites. Teams, made up of 2 to 10 people each, will create an edible masterpiece using materials - over 250 pounds of gingerbread, 100 pounds of icing and 10 pounds of gumdrops - provided by David M. Schwarz, in the lobby of Washington Square on Connecticut Avenue on Monday, November 28th, at 6 p.m. The sweet-smelling event will be open to the hungry eyes of the public, and will remain on display in the Washington Square lobby from November 28th to December 2nd, before the town is broken up and individual buildings distributed to charities, along with the proceeds. Sponsors of the event, also participating in the building event, include Walter P. Moore, PageSoutherlandPage, Davis Construction, Perkins + Will, ZGF, ECS, Studio39, AIA Emerging Architects, and Frankie's Folio. 

Inspiration for the Elf Vegas theme of this year's Gingertown were two David M. Schwarz Architects' Las Vegas projects: a Strip-adjacent retail, dining and entertainment district for Caesar's Entertainment with Observation Wheel, which will be recreated in Gingertown, and opens in 2013, and the Smith Center for the Performing Arts, which includes Symphony Park, and opens in early March 2012. As for work locally, DMSAS is behind the design for the renovation of The Pennsylvania Building for Willco, a 250,000-s.f office at 1275 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, to be under construction next year. Schwarz is also responsible for the design of The JBG Companies' "Boutique Hotel" at 13th and U Streets.  

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Your Next Place

By Franklin Schneider

You know, the other night I was sitting around my house and my head was sort of cold, and I thought, wouldn't it be nice if there were big armchairs in here with these sort of metal helmets attached to them that swiveled down and blew hot air onto my head? But there weren't. So I put on a hat instead. I forgot where I was going with this.

Oh right. The open house. So THIS place – this is the place with the hot-air-helmet-chairs. I have to admit, I didn't realize until I got there that it was a house-slash-upscale hair salon. When I looked at the listing I thought it just had really quirky furniture. (Yes, I do this for a living.) Of course, as the agent helpfully pointed out, it doesn't have to be a hair salon. Just like you, me, and every other American – it could be anything! (The main difference is that with the house, it's actually true.) An office, a consulate, a private residence, whatever.

A beautiful historic rowhouse in the West End, with gleaming hardwood floors and tons of light, it's a live/work property, so the upstairs is still totally residential, with two very large bedrooms and a fine bathroom. Out back is a wooden deck and a large brick patio with a quirky little fountain, and lots of privacy. And the salon level could easily be converted to a regular house-type house where you do normal life stuff like sitting around and watching the entire first season of “Night Court” online while eating out of styrofoam takeout containers and then in a fit of existential disgust afterwards asking yourself, “yes, I'm biologically alive, but am I really living?” (I decided the answer was no. Then I watched Season 2.)

*Update: the present owners are going to remove the hair salon before the sale, so yeah ... no big chairs with air helmets attached in the living room.

1013 24th Street NW
2 Bedrooms, 2.5 Baths
$1,299,000

The Nude That Ruled the Roost

By Beth Herman

Peppering her design discourse with words like "fun," "vigor," "whimsy," "syzygy," and definitely "comfort," above all interior designer Carol Freedman of Carol Freedman Design lives for color.

"I use it in abundance and have the courage to use it a variety of ways,” Freedman said, referencing her own Bethesda, Md. living room with its lush blue and purple color palette (think sky; sapphire; peacock; blueberry; robin’s egg; lavender; lilac; morning glory; grape).

A former environmental lobbyist, Freedman traded issues of the great outdoors for items found in great interiors, having come to design almost by birthright. Daughter of a professional interior designer, she achieved her first total room redesign (her bedroom) at age 13, and went on to reinterpret college friends’ dorm rooms with generous color, bedding and accessories. Both a quilter and artist, Freedman also studied drafting and drawing in landscape architecture classes, providing for a confluence of influences in her current—since 1994—career.

Of the residences she has transitioned from boring to beaming, Freedman said, “I think ensconcing yourself in a colorful, vibrant environment is a great way to live.” Citing everything from the color CPR and redesign of a home an architect had saddled with incongruent tones, to a client’s favorite teal, olive, caramel and rust-hued tote bag that was brought to her as the basis for a home’s redesign and color challenge, Freedman said her greatest joy comes from creating rooms from a single object or idea. “I really live for that,” she said.

Notes on a nude

In Chevy Chase, a quiet but spectacular heirloom painting of a nude in a 3,500 s.f. bungalow-style home was the catalyst for a redesign of the residence’s living and dining spaces—and family room. Rubenesque in physique with decidedly gold, bronze and copious olive tones, the painting was “incredibly evocative,” Freedman recalled. While she’d not worked with those colors before, the designer said she was nevertheless thrilled to use the artwork as the inspiration for the redesign of the home.

Accordingly, Freedman upholstered a loveseat and sofa, respectively, in olive and sage. Referencing the robust nude and desiring “sexy, shapely, interesting furniture,” the vintage loveseat is by enduring New York modernist Vladimir Kagan, and like the model in the painting, is broad and curvy. It’s also truly comfortable. “When you sit in these spaces, though they may not be huge, they’re very cozy and comfortable, which is something for which I always aim,” the designer affirmed. Accent pillows in sage, olive and rust, and a rust-colored plush chair from France, augment the space. To add texture, both the chair and especially an ottoman coffee table are made from woven, organic materials, and a cream-colored shag rug turns up the wow on warp and weft. A Donghia side table beneath the painting has shapely legs, a curved top with a ruffled quality and a gilt edge, reflecting the artwork’s anatomy, tones and also its gilt frame.

In the dining room, accessed through pocket doors emblematic of the home’s prodigious wood detail, deep rust walls provide a sense of depth and intimacy – the color teased through from the living room where it is found in the pillows and plush chair. Gold ultrasuede dining table chairs, both durable and functional in light of the household’s growing children, complement a heavy, pale pickled oak dining table by Birdman. An intricately-grained Berman Rosetti wood buffet flanks a wildly colorful patterned rug from Nepal.

All in the family (room)

With a vital, active young family, the residence’s family room became a hub for fun and color. Butter yellow walls provided a canvas for a bright, vintage flapper-era poster that the homeowner, whom the designer said has a “keen eye for art,” found at an antique poster store in Georgetown. In this room, though the art was not the driver (actually, the sofa came first), its colors are redolent both of the living and dining spaces and the poster. A soft, cozy, durable sectional sofa, which Freedman describes as “somewhere between periwinkle and violet,” is accompanied by a yellow gold leather Ligne Roset chair— sleek with clean lines but “very sit-able and comfortable,” the designer said. A whimsical gold, rust, black and blue rug picks up the colors of the room – including circular black tables—in its presentation of stripes and dots.

“When I saw all the dots in the rug, that’s when I decided to do all the fun, round pillows, so they sort of jump off the carpet and onto the sectional,” Freedman explained. Banks of three-quarter length windows across the room bathe the room in light, and a ceiling painted a pale sky blue helps open the space.

Another client, who was extremely color-shy, ultimately told the designer that her bold use of hues was “a revelation”—one that prompted a visceral reaction and changed his entire experience of a long, dark winter. It’s a message she continues to carry to clients about the joy of color. And though that infectious feeling caused her to fail a middle school project on design because she and a friend couldn’t stop laughing during the orals, clearly Freedman has persevered nevertheless.

Another Park Crest Residential Tower Going Up in Tysons Corner

The 14-acre development in Tysons Corner known as "Park Crest" will get another residential tower. Life insurance company Northwestern Mutual purchased the undeveloped portion of Park Crest earlier this year and construction is to begin on the 19-story, 300-unit apartment - "Two Park Crest" - next month.

The Penrose Group and Donohoe Companies are partners in the development of the Park Crest site, and continue to work with architect Lessard Design to make Two Park Crest a reality.

Two Park Crest will be the second tower built in the Park Crest development, and will be under construction soon, confirmed a project architect at Lessard Design (formerly Lessard Group, now without a website). Construction at the Two Park Crest site will join another parcel of Park Crest now under construction: a 5-story, 354-unit apartment "Avalon Park Crest" by AvalonBay, to deliver next July. AvalonBay purchased the 2.64-acre site for $13.3 million in 2010.

The entire Park Crest site lies on sloping terrain, and the change in elevation has lent itself to the creation of a "terraced waterpark" that will be incorporated into the Two Park Crest site, explained Priya Sambasivam, an associate principal at Lessard. The water feature will crisscross through greenery and drop 20-to-30' from start to finish. Other on-site features of Two Park Crest include an outdoor pool, a fitness room, a cyber cafe, a game room, an outdoor Bocce ball court, and a "small dog park." Sambasivam added that the tower lobby will be "a grand two-story atrium."

Two Park Crest will be architecturally sympathetic in scale and style (contemporary) to the first completed residential tower in Park Crest, the 18-story "Park Crest One Condominium," but feature a strikingly smooth glass curtain wall facade offset with vertical bands of brick - unlike the highly textured exterior of Park Crest One, with numerous bays and rounded corners.

The condo delivered in 2008, and Penrose retained majority ownership of the remainder of the property. The 335-unit condo is 86-percent sold out and priced between $350K and $1.5 million said Mark Gregg, President of The Penrose Group. The other completed component of Park Crest is "The Lofts at Park Crest," a 131-unit apartment (95-percent occupied) with Harris Teeter grocery. The Lofts were sold to Behringer Harvard REIT for $67.5 million in January of 2010.

Two Park Crest will soon become the sole high-rise apartment under construction in the Tysons area, explained Gregg. Likewise, in 2008, Park Crest One was the first "luxury" high-rise condominium built in Tysons Corner in over two decades.

A third residential tower, the site of which was also purchased by Northwestern Mutual, is currently in conceptual design phase by Lessard Design and will likely be rental apartments. When complete, the entire Park Crest development will contain over 1,300 residential units, a mix of apartments and condominiums (high-rise and loft).

Of Park Crest's greater locale, Fairfax County planners believe that "by 2050, Tysons Corner will be transformed into a walkable, sustainable, urban center that will be home to up to 100,000 residents and 200,000 jobs." It's quite the goal, but they have nearly 40 years, and four metro stations on the way in their favor.

Virginia real estate development news

CityMarket at O Makes it Official Friday

Three years after signing a funding deal with the city, one and a half years after applying for federal funding, not to mention several intervening official groundbreakings, the CityMarket at O will begin actual construction on Friday.

Roadside Development and city officials will gather Friday at 10am for photographs and speeches but, for the first time, also to watch the machinery "eat a big chunk of the Giant," says a spokesman for Roadside.

Federal officials announced on October 11th that it had granted Roadside $128m for development of the market that will include a 182-key Cambria Suites hotel, 150 condominiums and 635 apartments, 84 set aside as affordable senior housing, as well as restoration of the O Street Market, one of the 5 original brick markets built in Washington D.C. Roadside officials say the project will generate 2400 jobs directly.

Friday's construction triggers the 2-year time frame promised to Giant, giving Roadside until November 18, 2013, to reopen the supermarket. Richard Lake of Roadside said the $128 HUD loan closed on Thursday. The remainder of the financing is provided by a $32m TIF funding from the city and $40m from Equity raised by Roadside.

Contractors will first demolish the Giant, then spend 6 months excavating. The new supermarket will be the first piece to reopen, followed quickly by 400 apartments and the hotel. Roadside does not yet have funding for the second portion of the work - the condos and senior center - said Roadside's Lake, but hope that financing will allow construction of that phase to begin shortly and deliver concurrently.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Your Next Place

By Franklin Schneider

I'm not usually one to laud the glory of bygone eras (if only because I can't stand to admit that I missed out on something), but this house definitely seemed to embody a sort of ideal. Built in 1940 (which is in that sweet spot right after technology to a reasonably advanced degree but before everything went to total and utter crap), it seemed to combine the class and subtlety of the classic with the clean lines and open spaces of the contemporary. Also, it had a ton of chandeliers. I'm a firm believer that you can never have too many chandeliers. (True story: when I was growing up, my grandparents had an RV with a chandelier in it. And you'll never convince me that it didn't look fantastic.)


A beautiful whitewashed brick home, you walk up a long sloping set of stairs bordered by a landscaped terrace and enter into the airy center of the home. All the main public rooms branch off this entryway; the living room is huge and flooded with light, and there's a beautiful formal dining room (loved the dark walls) as well as a cozier breakfast room off the (very fine) kitchen. Both have fireplaces, so when your significant other forgets (again) that you don't like onions in your stir-fry, instead of passive-aggressively picking out individual onions, you can just fling it, plate and all, into the fire. Honesty is the foundation of all lasting relationships.

Upstairs are the three bedrooms. The master suite is especially masterful, and sweet (wordplay!), with a large, chandelier-lit (of course) bedroom and a palatial bathroom that's far too elegant for the kind of disgusting things you do in there. The other bedrooms are spacious and finely detailed and just generally so classy that I'm quite sure that if I moved in and tried to put my cigarette-burned IKEA chair and unsheeted twin mattress in there, they'd spit them back into the hallway like someone who just noticed a dead mouse floating in their soda. There's also a gorgeous woodsy yard in back, with a small bluestone patio, and an attached two car garage. What could be more American than actually driving your cars into your house?

3715 49th St. NW
3 Bedrooms, 3 Bathrooms
$1,775,000

The Geography Lesson

By Beth Herman

The result of a strong, symbiotic design-build effort between Square 134 Architects and Ellisdale Construction & Development, The Harrison, 5201 Wisconsin Avenue, was in many ways a significant architectural challenge.

With 48 units, a tin and brick façade, slate, glass or marble interior spaces and 9-foot ceiling heights, the 40,000 s.f. $10 million development in Friendship Heights straddles the zoning line between commercial and residential, and triumphed over considerable zoning challenges, Square 134 Architects Principal Ron Schneck said. “On Connecticut and Wisconsin Avenues, you have these very large commercial structures right along the street, and then very quickly you have residential next to that.”

At the time of the feasibility study, and many others like it, the architect said it was difficult to find affordable, developable spare space within the city. Built on a “very complicated” infill site that, in order to comply with zoning requirements, is technically considered an addition to the Bank of America, Schneck said in order to be an addition a "meaningful connection" must be established. In this case, the lowest level of the parking garage aligned with Bank of America, with shared parking a result. Additionally, the goal was to have the building respond to the aforementioned large scale commercial nature of Wisconsin Avenue, but also step down to the residential aspect, which is right there, the architect explained.

Addressing yet another facet of the architectural challenge, The Harrison was conceived to have the utmost flexibility. According to Schcneck, when a building of this nature is conceived, typically the demising partition is the bearing line, making it fairly easy from a construction standpoint. But The Harrison was created so that the building’s skin was its bearing, providing for maximum flexibility in arranging units. With no vertical spacing, the structure is more open with horizontal banding, easily accommodating several design iterations that included roving windows and reimagining about two-thirds of the original concept. “Elements could be modified to meet the unit mix,” Schneck said, noting The Harrison’s one-and two-bedroom market-rate units range from 500 to 1,200 s.f.

With a landscaped courtyard that includes fire and water features, plus individual front terraces, in-unit task lighting and porcelain tile, at market rate The Harrison was 80 percent sold by completion. "We really had to try and crack the zoning issues," Schneck said. "It came out of the ground at a time when nothing like it was under construction."

Full Raze Petition Rebuked by HPO for New Jersey Ave Houses

The Third Street Church of God will now plump for a full demolition of three historic rowhouses on New Jersey Avenue, a turnaround from their original plans to only partially raze the structures. The Church got a preliminary okay from DC's Historic Preservation Office (HPO), then got support from the Historic Preservation Review Board in June, both for a partial (not full) demolition of its property at 1232-1236 New Jersey Avenue, NW. After HPRB approved the partial raze request, the Church immediately asserted it would fight for a full raze, as the Church seemed to have felt pressured into partial preservation.

Making good on that promise, the Church is seeking to fully demolish the property by petitioning the Mayor's Agent with the plea of economic burden, a move that the HPO has just opposed.

The three rowhouses next to the Church on New Jersey Avenue date back to 1866, but have become severely decrepit in the last few decades of life. Still, HPRB determined that the front façades and brick party walls of the rowhouses maintained their integrity and could be braced and retained, resulting in the call for partial preservation this summer.

The most recent HPO report opposing the Church's full raze petition says "The conditions at 1234 and 1236 can largely be blamed on 20 years of deferred maintenance...the Board has always stood against approving razes of buildings brought to a state of dilapidation by lack of maintenance, as approval would not only result in the loss of historic fabric and character in the particular, but would reward and encourage such neglect in general."

If the Mayor's Agent does approve the Church's petition for a full raze, then the cleared site would be incorporated into the Church parking lot, in order to offset the 15 spaces (in the 32 space lot) that will be lost due to the addition on its property at 1208 3rd St.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Your Next Place

By Franklin Schneider

Wow. This incredible Grand Colonial sits on a massive quarter-acre lot in Barnaby Woods, looming hugely over the neighborhood like something huge that looms over things. (Khloe Kardashian?) The white brick looks incandescent in the afternoon light, and the huge tree-shaded corner lot is exquisitely landscaped and slopes gracefully to the street; you won't find many houses like this in the District, short of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

This classy house also features five bedrooms, four full baths, and more hardwood flooring than ten bowling alleys. Also, three fireplaces, in case two fireplaces is simply inadequate for your combustion requirements. Man, this house was just huge. They could film a remake of “The Shining” here, though it would be a shame to ruin the floors with all that fake blood. The master suite upstairs also features a beautiful veranda, from which you can survey the entire neighborhood, as they no doubt jealously eye your huge landscaped corner lot and veranda. There's a screened-in porch that's ideal for lounging, and a formal dining room for, well, formal dining.

There's also a two-car garage, which comes in handy. Growing up, my house had a two-car garage but we only had one car, so quite often my father would sit on an overturned bucket in that empty space, staring off into the night and wondering where he'd gone wrong. At other times, we used it for jetski storage.

6520 Barnaby St.

Washington DC 20015
$995,000