This Week's Find: A Cleveland Park Original

• June 8th 2021

by Nena Perry-Brown

This Week's Find is one of Cleveland Park's original houses, located a block from the neighborhood's one-time streetcar station.

The Cleveland Park Development Company began developing the houses along Newark Street in the late 19th century, and 2941 Newark Street is one of 13 in the neighborhood designed by Robert Thompson Head, an architect from Virginia. Head's style has become recognizable with features including ample porch space and varied rooflines and window punch-outs.

2941 Newark was designed in 1898 as a spec house for future lot buyers in the neighborhood, positioned at the edge of a quarry that now offers views of the horizon. The house melds several architectural styles (Prairie, Tudor, and Victorian) into a Queen Anne-style. In 1903, the Washington Times stated that the house "never fails to attract passers-by."

One of the home's early owners was James Henderson, known for his Henderson furniture company, then located at 11th and F Streets NW. Now, the house has been updated, but retains its eclectic styles, apparent from the exterior and the interior. 

A stone courtyard interspersed with gardens leads up to the house, which has covered porches on either side, including a wraparound porch with multi-tone wood slats mitered as the flooring. Inside, the stair is located in the turret, creating a spacious sitting area on the first landing and leading directly up into a cupola bonus room with exposed wood beams. 

Back on the main level, the living room has a wide archway window alcove beside a corner fireplace, and the library has a bay window, another fireplace, and french doors beneath gridded clerestory windows. The formal dining room has decorative beams striped across the ceiling, along with a set of french doors to patio space.

The spacious kitchen is open to a sunroom-like breakfast alcove on one side and to the family room on the other, which has a built-in projector and a fireplace with tile surround arranged like sunbeams. The owner's bedroom also has a fireplace, and the house also has a lower level rec room, a detached garage, and a rear patio with a fire pit steps from a heated saltwater pool. 

• Full Listing: 2941 Newark Street NW (map)
• Price: $5,695,000
• Bedrooms: Five
• Bathrooms: 4.5
• Square Feet: 6,096
• Year Built: 1898
• Listing Agent: Margot Wilson, Washington Fine Properties

Photo courtesy of HomeVisit.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/this-weeks-find-a-cleveland-park-original/18357.