This Week's Find: Universal Design in Cleveland Park

• April 21st 2016

by Nena Perry-Brown

This Week’s Find is a Cleveland Park four-bedroom that was designed and constructed in 1940 by local architect Waldron Faulkner as his personal residence. In 1992, Waldron’s son Winthrop oversaw a rectangular addition to the home that included many aspects of “universal design” that proved to be critical for the owners.

The older and newer parts of the home are configured in an L-shape, connected by a sunny, glass-enclosed corridor. A 1995 Washington Post article on the home discussed the renovations, which Winthrop made to accommodate his brother-in-law William Crawford, wheelchair-bound after an unfortunate fall.

“At the Crawfords’ Northwest Washington home…universal design translates into a modest list of practicalities,” the article stated. “Extra-wide doorways, push-down levers that require less strength than conventional doorknobs, kitchen shelves that are easier to reach than traditional cabinets, and sliding glass doors with quarter-inch thresholds, which trim tree-fourths of an inch off the standard residential threshold.”

The centerpiece of the addition is a great room with a vaulted ceiling and loft area. An array of windows are carved out at the end of the kitchen/dining space, “a close adaptation of a barrel-vaulted doorway at the Villa Pajana, a 16th-century Palladian country house near Venice”, according to the Post article. The home will go on the market next week. See below for more details and photos.

• Address: 3419 36th Street NW (map)
• Price: $3.25 million
• Bedrooms: Four
• Bathrooms: 4.5
• Year Built: 1940
• Listing Agents: Heidi Hatfield, Andrea Hatfield, Anne Hatfield Weir and Tammy Gale, Washington Fine Properties

Photos courtesy of HomeVisit.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/this_weeks_find_universal_design_in_cleveland_park/11134.