Long Time Empty Lot For Sale

A longtime empty lot in the heart of Georgetown is for sale. The lot at 3245 O St., immediately west of Hyde-Addison, is for sale for $1.75 million.

Many people have asked about the property over the years. I knew little myself, having heard rumors of a fight over the property but I tracked down a Washington Post article about the property from 1997 to finally get the details:

A protracted battle to preserve a crumbling historic house in Georgetown ended as the house was reduced to rubble yesterday.

While District officials have been balancing the city’s budget, debating the death penalty and tackling other weighty issues, community activists in Georgetown have been doing battle over “The House.”

Few paid much attention to the red brick house at 3245 O St. NW back in 1980, when Mark and Malika Roberts bought the property with the idea of tearing it down to build a new home.

But over the years, residents said, the house was unattended and uninhabited. It also became the most talked-about Georgetown house since the filming of “The Exorcist.”

The Robertses wanted the house demolished. Community leaders called for the property’s restoration, saying it was part of a patch of dwellings built for port workers in 1812. The residences, they said, were testimony to Georgetown’s being more than an enclave for the rich and politically powerful.

The battle moved to bureaucratic circles. Although the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board denied the Robertses a permit to tear down the house, officials at the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs granted them a permit in April.

Neighbors unsuccessfully appealed, first in D.C. Superior Court and then in the D.C. Court of Appeals. The appeals were exhausted last week.

And yesterday, private contractors demolished the house.

“In tearing this home down, we lost a bit of history,” said James Fogarty, a Georgetown advisory neighborhood commissioner. “A dangerous precedent has been set, where if a home is neglected, it can be destroyed without any regard to its historical significance.”

Next-door neighbor Betsey Werronen said, “Now not only is there a hole on our street but a hole in history.”

The Robertses, who have maintained that the house needed to be razed because it was a safety hazard, referred all inquiries to their attorney yesterday.

Adam Lipton, the Robertses’ attorney, said the house was demolished because it was a health hazard and a threat to a nearby elementary school. “The mortar in the wall was so bad that kids were pulling out bricks,” Lipton said.

“This is rewarding neglect,” fumed Westy Byrd, an advisory neighborhood commissioner. “For 17 years, the owners have neglected this property.

“The Historic Preservation Review Board denied the Robertses permission to demolish the property, but the city allowed them to,” she said.

According to property records, the family still owns the lot and would appear to be the ones selling it.