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A Century of Doing Things Their Own Way
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Laura Dove and her husband, Dan Solomon, both work in the District and agree it's a "great commute." They are now living in their second Del Ray house.
When they moved to the neighborhood in 1999, it was just the two of them, and they had plenty of time to expand their $200,000 Sears kit bungalow from 900 square feet to 1,600 square feet. Eventually, with two kids and a live-in child-care provider, they were bursting at the seams. In 2007, they sold that house for $675,000 and moved five blocks "into a big house, at least for Del Ray," Dove said.
An old farmhouse built around 1920, it had already been renovated -- almost. "The heart pine floors, which you cannot find anymore, were covered with carpeting, and the windows were old and rattling," Dove said. Their first heating bill was $1,100, inspiring them to replace all the windows.
In what Dove calls "a typical Del Ray story," the couple called their friends at Del Ray Artisans, an art gallery on the avenue, who "came over in about five minutes and picked up the old windows and used them to make art."
Dove is a self-described "Del Ray evangelist."
"There's the Halloween parade, a chili cook-off, and a Christmas cookie exchange," she said. "There's a Saturday morning farmers market from spring until after Thanksgiving. There's an organic grocery store, and an informal mom's group meets every Wednesday at a local cafe. The YMCA was built in 1996, with a great pool.
"The only thing we don't have is sushi."
