The Best Listing of 2018 (For the Mere Mortal)

• December 18th 2018

by UrbanTurf Staff

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UrbanTurf usually avoids publishing rankings or lists…except at the end of the year, when we look back at what DC’s residential real estate scene had to offer during the previous 12 months. This week, we revisit some of the best, most intriguing and peculiar things we came across over the course of 2018. Enjoy.

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For those of us who aren’t pulling in the money for a multi-million dollar house, UrbanTurf sorted through the hundreds of more reasonably-priced listings featured on the site this year to come up with our favorite. The winner: A Georgetown home transformed over two decades by its owner into a house that simultaneously evokes an old New England cottage and a houseboat.

The semi-detached house on 29th Street (map) was built in 1908 by William Blount as an office. After buying the property in the mid-1990s, owner Jim Lande was very deliberate when he set about accomplishing his planned aesthetic.

"I recognized that it's very easy to tip over from having nautical inspiration into being a cliché and overdoing it," Lande explained to UrbanTurf. "You end up looking like a seafood restaurant if you start putting up fishnets and buoys." 

Rather than go that route, Lande settled on a theme of colors and materials, incorporating navy, black and red with steel, chrome, polished brass, and bare woods that are typical to boats, such as Honduran and African mahogany and teak.

The home's front door features a rope-operated doorbell that is literally attached to a bell just inside. A maritime-style hand-carved teak banner with gold foil sits above the door to announce the address, including the Colonial-era name of the street. Shelving units were built into the living room, which also features a wood-paneled fireplace with a Curitiba quartzite hearth that is meant to evoke the pebbly beaches of Michigan.

The kitchen is decked completely in mahogany and has complementary Black Morgan granite flooring, a Black Galaxy granite two-basin farmhouse sink, a True commercial refrigerator with glass doors, a custom built-in banquette with Black Galaxy granite tabletop and a custom British AGA stove with five separate electric and gas ovens, including one perfect for making pizza. The backsplash is comprised of three maps mounted behind glass, featuring Cape Cod, the upper half of Lake Michigan, and the Chesapeake Bay off of Annapolis.

The hallway and rooms upstairs also feature mahogany beadboard ceilings, and an additional built-in banquette-style desk sits in the second bedroom, which leads out to a second terrace. As an added piece of history, the granite blocks that comprise the rear terrace were sourced from the Watergate, having been replaced there with red brick years ago. 

The home was listed in June by Fergus O'Brien, received seven offers and sold for 28 percent above its list price of $699,000.

More photos and details are below.

Photos by Sean Shanahan.

UrbanTurf's 2018 in Review Articles: 

• The Year of the $40 Million Home
• The Best DC Legislation That Didn't Get Passed in 2018
• The Most Ambitious Transportation Plan Pitched in 2018
• The Best History of a House to Hit the Market in 2018: Where JFK Met Jackie
• The Most Peculiar Tool Used to Fight a New Development in 2018
• The Best New Apartment Amenity Coming to DC: The Trail Lobby
• The Best Use of a Vacant Triangle
• The Most Impactful Legislation for DC Renters and Homeowners Passed in 2018
• The Best Listing of 2018 (For the Well Paid Lobbyist) 
• The Most Creative Responses to PUDs

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the-best-listing-of-2018-for-the-mere-mortal/14816.