DC's Hidden Places: Caroline Street

• July 31st 2014

by Lark Turner

In Hidden Places, UrbanTurf takes a look at some of the charming but lesser-known one- and two-block streets in the District. This week, we check out Caroline Street NW, a one-way, one-block stretch near the center of the city.

Caroline Street sits below U Street on the northeast edge of Dupont Circle (map), and is primarily made up of pairs of federal-style rowhouses, though a few homes on the block with more articulated facades and side front entries are included in the mix. The street was originally developed by Diller Baer Groff and potentially named after Groff’s mother, according to a comprehensive history of the block compiled by Dan Gamber and Richard Busch.

There are several eclectic residences on the street, including a house painted green with bars of darker greens covering the facade. The western end of the block has a tiny one-room brick rowhouse that now sits on the edge of a large multifamily building.

The smaller rowhouses on the block are mostly two- and three-bedrooms. An updated two-bedroom, one-bath house sold in June 2013 for about $800,000. A three-bedroom in as-is condition sold in August 2013 for $700,000.

The most interesting home may be 1505 Caroline Street, a residence built in 1875 with three bedrooms and two baths. According to Gamber and Busch, the home’s front bay and rear extension were added in 1889. “The estimated cost of construction was $600. Today it has a bay, a covered porch, elaborate iron work, and an extension on the side to the property line. No permit has been found for the side extension, which was obviously built in two stages,” Gamber and Busch write. “Part may have been done in 1889, without a permit.”

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This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dcs_hidden_places_caroline_street/8808.