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Historic Touches Help Colony Hill Hold Fast to Past

Colony Hill residents observe an unspoken rule: Home improvements are welcome, but the changes should not alter the neighborhood's historical feel. Residents have left the Colonial and Georgian facades of their 1930s homes untouched, limiting renovations to the interiors and tastefully tucking additions in the back.

"There has been no conscious policy about it," said 23-year resident Valerie Lynn. "People have just made their own effort to keep that look. When you go up and down the street, I think it still looks pretty much like it did when the houses were built."

Soon after they moved into their house on Hoban Road NW, Valerie and Kenneth Lynn added a lap pool to their back yard and opened up the living room with a square pane of glass in place of the back wall. The Lynns then refurbished their outdated kitchen and bathrooms, finishing the final round of renovations last year.

"The house was definitely a fixer-upper when we bought it," she said. "It really was crying out for attention all over."

C.D. Ward bought his Colony Hill home 11 years ago with renovations in mind as well. Standing in the middle of his rectangular TV room, Ward stretched his arms outward to show where a wall once separated the living room from a small dining room, pantry and mud room, where people could knock dirt off their shoes before entering. Once he turned those four rooms into one, Ward added a sitting room, porch and dining nook to the back of the house. The kitchen and bathrooms also were refurbished to bring modern convenience into the old house.

"The house was all right as it was, but we've done a lot to it," Ward said. "When I bought it, it had potential, but it needed expanding and modernizing."

Many residents like Ward and the Lynns have updated their houses extensively, but equipping architectural classics with modern amenities is nothing new to the neighborhood. It seems to have been Colony Hill's mission from the start.

A 1932 brochure for Colony Hill says the neighborhood was built for people "whose minds seek that elusive atmosphere of the old," with its one-of-a-kind homes that belong to "the old masterpieces that are gradually passing away," and still provide "the efficiency of the new." Borrowing themes from New England, Georgian and Grecian designs, architects Boss & Phelps placed traditional-style homes within reach of downtown Washington.

This small neighborhood, which has but three streets pinned between Reservoir Road, Foxhall Road and Glover-Archbold Park, was founded in 1932 by Harry K. Boss as part of his building feud with Waverly Taylor. Boss had barely finished his group of Foxhall Village houses when Taylor began building a rival development that blocked the view enjoyed by Boss's houses. To keep vigilant watch on Taylor's building activities, Boss built the cluster of Colony Hill houses just north of Foxhall Village, and settled into one of the first houses on Hoban Road.

Of the 70 houses Boss planned for Colony Hill, only 43 were built. Seven houses, priced from $470,000 to $842,000, have sold during the past two years, with the more expensive houses offering more space and renovated facilities, said agent David Mast of Weichert Realtors Inc. "These houses were built really well, but people now want larger family rooms and newer kitchens and bathrooms," Mast said. "So people are bringing those changes to these houses."

Residents said the changes are worth making because the neighborhood is ideal. Hoban Road residents enjoy Glover-Archbold Park as their back yard, where deer, foxes and raccoons are frequently spotted. Georgetown, the Kennedy Center and National Airport are minutes away by car. Home to many older residents, Colony Hill has seen an influx of affluent young families over the past few years. Traffic cutting through is a problem, but the neighborhood still appears to be a secret to most passersby.

"I've talked to numerous cabdrivers who had no idea this community was back here," said Erling Hansen, who moved to Colony Hill last year with his wife and three children. "You really have to know it's back here in order to get to it."

Residents also try to retain Colony Hill's historic look and tranquillity. At the request of one resident, the city turned Hoban Road into a one-way street to discourage its use as a through road. Hansen said he would like to involve the community in restoring the glass lanterns that flank the neighborhood's entrance.

Lynn said that while residents have always been friendly, a real sense of community emerged a decade ago, when they banded together to preserve a mid-19th century cabin built on a wedge of land between Colony Hill and Glover-Archbold Park.

The land, originally owned by a tobacco farmer, was sold in 1988 to architect Robert Bell, who planned seven town houses for the acre. Colony Hill residents persuaded the Historic Preservation Review Board to designate the cabin and the acre as a historic landmark and allow only one new house to be built on the property. In 1995, the board gave Bell permission to build the six-bedroom, six-bathroom mansion that will be completed this fall.

"We knew [the property] couldn't stay the way it was, which is why during the hearings we said we would be willing to have one reasonable-size house built there," Lynn said. "But we were very disappointed that they built one huge house that swallows up the whole acre."

Some Colony Hill residents complained that the large brick mansion dominates the former farmland and blocks their view of the park. But Bell said the house sits lower than neighboring Colony Hill, and that he designed it to be hidden from view along Reservoir Road. Bell built the house for Mark Palmer, a former U.S. ambassador to Hungary, and his wife, Sushma, a nutritional biochemist. Bell would not reveal the cost of the house.

Still, residents are more than satisfied with the elegance of the old and the luxury of the new in their own homes. The serene buffer of Glover-Archbold Park and the neighborhood's convenient location are the crowning touches, residents said.

"The fact that it's kind of hidden in here makes it like a little country oasis in the heart of the city, as it were," Hansen said.