In One Heated Dispute, Someone Set a Fire

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The Vernon Street Fire

On November 5, 2006, a fire broke out at 1846 Vernon Street NW in Washington D.C. The blaze came amid one of the city's fiercest battles betweeen tenants who wanted to stay in the building and a landlord who wanted them out so the property could be redeveloped. Responsibility for the blaze has never been determined and the arson probe is stalled.

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"The greatest distress I have in all of this . . . is that the whole case seems to have been dropped," said Alan Roth, former chairman of the advisory neighborhood commission, who lives on Vernon Street and knew many of the families that are now gone. "There was so much evidence of impropriety -- it's tragic."

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The Washington Post reviewed more than 500 government records, e-mails, transcripts, bank statements, corporate documents, deeds, housing code violation reports, court cases and property transactions to detail how families on Vernon Street lost their homes in a city that nearly three decades ago vowed to preserve working-class housing in the nation's capital.

For a half-century, the three-story building on Vernon Street and a second one next door had been home to a diverse mix of young professionals, college students and, recently, a tight-knit community of Bangladeshi immigrants, whose children held streetside soccer matches and lemonade sales. They lived on a quiet street of townhouses and brick apartment buildings adjacent to the Hilton Washington and near the bustling 18th Street entertainment corridor.

The buildings had been owned for decades by the Hartford E. Bealer Development Corp., started by Bealer, a longtime Washington real estate investor who in 1969 helped found Chevy Chase Bank and became its first president. The development company also owned a complex on T Street NW and one on 16th Street NE.

After Bealer's death in 2003, his son-in-law, Parker, of Palm Beach County, Fla., became president of the development company and decided to redevelop all three properties. In the summer of 2005, the company formed a partnership with Perseus Realty LLC, a Washington-based development firm. Overseeing the redevelopment was John Wood Bolton, Perseus Realty's executive vice president.

Within weeks of starting the partnership, the owners made their first move.

In August 2005, they submitted to the District's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs a report that found that all three complexes, with about 95 units, were contaminated with asbestos and lead-based paint. They asked for permission to evict the tenants while renovations were made.

DCRA approved the application, records show, freeing the owners to issue "Notice to Vacate" orders to tenants. By law, tenants have the right to return to their homes once work is complete.

Consultant William Salmon, who had been hired by the owners to negotiate with tenants, started offering money to families who agreed to leave permanently. While meeting with tenants, Salmon used a prepared script: "We understand that this type of move is difficult and due to the fact that the work will take several years, the move will most likely become a permanent one."

Tenants grew more confused when they were presented with a document to sign, agreeing to permanently leave the building and waive their rights in exchange for $500, along with another $500 when the building became empty. An 84-year-old woman who had lived at 1846 Vernon St. for four decades called Roth, the advisory neighborhood commissioner who lived across the street.

"There was something about it that didn't seem right to me," said Roth, who took the documents to Graham.