The Georgetown Metropolitan

Photo by m01299.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Ted Leonsis sold his Wormley Row condo for $2.65m.
• Taste of Georgetown is this Sunday.

Potomac Boat Club

This Sunday, there will be a gathering at Volta Park at 5:30 pm to dedicate a bench to the memory of Betsy Cooley.

Betsy was a rock for the Georgetown community. Serving as Executive Director of CAG for 13 years, she was an ever present face at community gatherings. Her laugh was infectious and her style impeccable. And GM still can’t believe she’s gone.

Please come out and join us to remember Betsy and share some memories.

Photo by Matt Caprigilone.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• America Eats gets a good review from Tom Sietsema. (But he doesn’t like the BBQ…)
• Georgetown students help free a man unjustly imprisoned for 26 years.

Montrose Park

The real estate industry fudges on a lot of topics. Geography is the most common. Desirable neighborhood names have a way of spreading way beyond their boundaries. But one thing that particularly annoys GM is how poorly real estate listings are in understanding historic architectural styles. And nowhere is that weakness more on display than in the way that just about every oldish rowhouse in Georgetown gets called “federal”.

They almost never really are.

GM has written a whole series on the dominant architectural styles in Georgetown, but here’s the quick and dirty version:

Technically speaking, “federal” refers to the short period of architecture that flourished after the Revolution but before the emergence of Greek revivalism in the 1820s. But the federal style is fairly similar to the Georgian style that preceded it, so it’s good enough for government work to throw them together.

So what makes this style?

Look for a paneled front door surrounded by what look like flattened columns (they’re called pilasters). Above the door is often a simple row of three or four small windows. The top of the doorway will be either squared off or have a more elaborate triangular pediment:

The front of the house will have relatively plain windows with a simple lintel (that’s the row of bricks or block of stone across the top). Often the lintel has a keystone in it:

The roof line often has small dentils (little blocks in a row) like this:

This is a tricky point, because other styles use dentils (like Greek revival and Neo-classical) or use elements somewhat like them. But GM will explain that below.

The thing is with federal/Georgian styles and Georgetown, there just aren’t many of them. Yes, Georgetown was founded in 1751 and a bustling port town during the height of these styles. But most of the first generation of homes built in Georgetown were torn down.

The reality is that most homes in Georgetown are actually Victorian. And two Victorian styles stand out in terms of being mistaken for federal: Italianate and Queen Anne.

If you close your eyes and picture the sort of Disney Main Street U.S.A. sort of architecture, you’re probably thinking of Italianate. It was a hugely popular style that reigned from 1840 through 1885.

When trying to identify Italianate houses, above all else the thing to look for is corbels. These a chunky brackets that show up on roof lines like this:

Notice, these corbels kind of look like the dentils of the federal period. But there are some key distinguishing features. Dentils a straight and square. Corbels look like elaborate book ends flipped upside-down. They are also generally larger and more spread out than dentils. Continue reading →

Photo by AJ Delos Santos.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• How Sweetgreen got its start in Georgetown.
• Honestly that’s about all the news GM can find. It’s a little tough to find “Georgetown” news these days that doesn’t have to do with Georgetown Prep….

Dumbarton Oaks

Wisconsin Ave. in Georgetown is more and more a ghost town these days. The level of vacant storefronts along the street through Georgetown is surely near or at an all-time high. And it just seems to keep getting worse.

The stretch of the road between O and Q Streets has always been a bit of an outlier. For decades this stretch was dominated by cheap suit and jewelry stores. But those are almost entirely gone now. Only a couple remain. And in some cases the formerly decrepit building has been transformed into a beautiful new space. But the space still is mostly empty.

But the vacancies on Wisconsin Ave. are not limited to just these couple blocks. Vacancies pockmark the street from M all the way up to the Safeway. On the lower stretch, GM counts six empty storefronts, including the recent closures of Paolo’s and American/Holiday. In the middle stretch there are eleven empty spaces. Book Hill has a smattering of empty spaces. And Upper Wisconsin, above R, has been struggling with long empty spaces for years. Continue reading →

Photo by Mike Maguire.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The Alex bar serves a “bath tub” gin in a tiny bath tub.
• The Chase invasion commences (including here in Georgetown)