Pat Kennedy - Your Washington, DC Real Estate Connection

Chevy Chase isn’t just a goofy guy who used to be on Saturday Night Live.  In the early 1900’s it became one of Washington’s early street car communities.

Many of the early homes were built from kits purchased from Sears Roebuck and transported on trolley flat cars.    The contractor would load everything from the flat bed to a wagon and then to the building lot. 

There are also many of the Washington area cliché houses in Chevy Chase, center hall brick colonials.  These came later, typically in the 1930’s. 

The architecture in Chevy Chase is pretty eclectic.  There are homes in all sizes and shapes and styles, and while many have been added onto and renovated, others are close to their original condition.  This can make it pretty interested when we do a competitive market analysis for a client.

There are currently 38 homes for sale in Chevy Chase, with prices ranging from a lot of $598,000 to a high of $1,895,000.  To see these listings, you may click here.

While the trolley are now in a museum, Chevy Chase does have a Metro stop at the Friendship Heights station.  The neighborhood public schools have a good reputation, and from most of the neighborhood, it's an easy walk to restaurants shopping, and the Avalon Theater.   So, if you are thinking about a move to Washington, Chevy Chase might be a good neighborhood to consider.  

The Avalon Theater: A Chevy Chase Landmark Since 1923

If you are looking for a wonderful date night venue, The Avalon Theater is a best bet, especially this week!

It's currently playing Julie and Julia, a movie that spoke to me on so many levels that I may have to write a movie review!  But here is what makes it special. There is a cafe that is serving as this week's special, the boeuf Bourguignom recipe from the movie.

The Avalon origianally opened in 1923 as the Chevy Chase Theater.  They showed silent pictures, and a big old pipe organ played the background music.  Over the years, there were renovations to add modern necessities like a sound system and air conditioning.    At the time it was wired for talkies in 1929, the name changed to The Avalon. 

In 2001, when the former owner went bankrupt, the theater was stripped.  The seats, the sound and projection systems - all of it was gone.  And we were all afraid that. like so many other historic theaters here in Washington, it would turn into one more CVS (not that we don't love our local pharmacy). 

In 2006, with the support of the neighborhood, the Avalon Theater Project purchased and beautirully the property and is now running both major first run films and special art and foreign films. 

They are supported, not only by ticket prices, but also by memberships that people in the community can buy. 

The Avalon is located just south of Chevy Chase Circle, at 5612 Connecticut Avenue NW.

Pumpernickels:  Don’t Walk Past This Place When You’re On The “General Motors Diet”!

Chevy Chase's Pumpernickel's Bagel Bakery  is a place to avoid when you’re trying to slim down for a big reunion or any other reason.   And today was the day I started the infamous GM diet – well General Motors has nothing to do with it, but still.  It’s a little extreme, but my neighbor has lost enough weight on it that we’re starting to call him “Slim”.

So on day one, you eat fruit.  Just fruit.  Best if it’s just a day of melon.  So, I had several meals and snacks of cantaloupe and watermelon on the day I decided to post about Pumpernickel's and how fabulous their food is. 

And by three in the afternoon, when I went over to take pictures of the place, I was having the most intense attack of gotta-eat-something-really-fattening-right-now-or-I’ll-die!  I didn’t dare go inside.

When I need comfort food, I don’t go for the bagels necessarily.  They also make amazing sandwiches.  My favorite is their piled high BLT on, um, pumpernickel bread with a couple of pieces of cheddar melted on.  These are not just sandwiches, but they are “entrée sandwiches”.

Now the desserts are quite wonderful, too.  And as I was standing out front, camera in hand, I had to wonder if their totally delicious key lime pie counted as a fruit on day one of my diet.  It’s not cantaloupe, but it is fruit!

They have take out and eat in. There are tables outside that are usually all taken at lunchtime in good weather.  And they’ll even cater your event, big or small. 

So writing this is making me feel really, really hungry! 

Day Two of the GM diet is an all you can eat veggie day.  Wonder if I’ll make it through without a trip to Pumpernickel’s!  But wait!  They usually have some kind of greens. Those are vegetables!

So check them out the next time you are really hungry.  They're at 5504 Connectiut Avenue NW, and their phone number is 202-244-9505 

And the next time you're ready to buy or sell a house in the Washington metropolitan area, call, Pat Kennedy 

Politics & Prose – The Little Bookstore That Could

In this time of dramatic change in the book selling business, Politics and Prose is a neighborhood treasure that seems to be doing things the old fashioned way and making it work.

Located near the corner of Connecticut and Nebraska Avenues, Politics and Prose serves the community, not only as a bookseller, but as a meeting place for people who drop into the Coffee House with their computers or for local book groups who borrow the space on the lower level for their discussions.  The Coffee House features the work of local artists and has Saturday night Open Mike events.

Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade, the store's founders, opened their doors in 1984.  Over the years, they have expanded the staff to a total of 50 people – and the store is a whole lot bigger than when they first opened.

Their travel section was my main resource while I was planning my trip to Paris.  When I need a birthday present for a client’s child, I drop by their huge selection of books for children and teens and can always find something perfect.  And whatever my book club is reading, I can go to Politics and Prose, and they give book club discounts. 

But I think the most important way they connect to the neighborhood is through their author events.  Anyone important who is coming to town on a book tour tries to get an evening at Politics and Prose.  Next week, the authors are Helene Cooper (The House At Sugar Creek), Anthony Flint (Wrestling With Moses), Richard Russo (That Old Cape Magic) and Howard Dean (Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform).  And these events always seem to be packed.

They cater to a highly sophisticated clientele, which has included everyone from people like me to Presidents – you never know when you are going to encounter guys with trench coats talking into their lapels.  That would be the Secret Service.  And you know that someone huge is about to come through the doors.

And, most important, they have woven themselves into the fabric of the upper Northwest Washington neighborhoods they serve. 

In this era of gigantic bookstores, Amazon and Kindles, they are thriving by figuring out just what their local market wants, and they doing a superb job of providing it.

Politics and Prose is located at 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, and there is free parking in the lot behind the store.

The Uptown Cathay: Pan Asian Food in Chevy Chase

In the 1980's, when Peter Yan was a newbie Realtor®, his goal was not to be the Rookie of the  Year.  Nope.  He wanted to open, not a gazillion dollar listing, but a really good Chinese restaurant.  And now, he's pretty much exceeded his own expectations.

As the owner of the Uptown Cathay, Peter has turned a great neighborhood Chinese place into much more.

First, he hired a sushi chef, and he had an all-you-can-eat Sunday sushi brunch.  I've been a regular over the years, along with several family members who might have made it difficult for him to earn a profit.

Yum!

Then a few months ago, be brought on a superb Thai chef, which sort of made it official.  The Uptown Cathay is now Pan Asian.

They're doing mostly a take out and delivery business, and when you drop in to pick up an order, it's fun to stop for a glass of wine and a discussion of international affairs or health care reform with other patrons.

But mostly, it's about the food!  My sweetie is still talking about the curried duck we had last week. 

Yum.

The Uptown Cathay is at 5018 Connecticut Avenue, just below Nebraska.  For delivery, call (202) 966-6688

Yesterday on tour, I spotted this patch of corn and sunflowers in front of one of the historic homes in Chevy Chase where one would expect a different type of landscape design!  I wonder if the owners are transplants from Kansas, that corny Sunflower State!

© 2009 Patricia Kennedy. Unless otherwise noted, the content, both written and in pictures, is the property of Patricia Kennedy . If you would like to use this image, please  email me (housepat@mac.com) with your request. I'll almost certianly say yes, and ask only that you provide a link back to my original content as well as an acknowledgment.  The same thing applies to any other material you see posted here on Active Rain or on any of my other blogs.

Yes, Washington is famous for it’s cherry blossoms that bloom like crazy in late March or early April.  There is even a festival with a princess and everything.  So what happens when the blossoms fade and blow off the cherry trees?

Next come the azaleas!  This week, they are all over town.  They are red, shocking pink, white and lavender. 

On some houses, they are neatly manicured hedges,

and on others they are sort of wild.

They grow pretty slowly, so when you see a huge flowering display, you know that someone has lovingly nurtured the bush over many years.

Even the simplest brick center hall colonials (Washington’s cliché houses) look amazing when they put on their lipstick and become absolutely flirtworthy!  These photos were taken over the last few days in Cleveland Park, Tenleytown and Chevy Chase.

So if you are visiting Washington and missed out on the cherry trees, it’s worth a drive or a stroll through some of the residential neighborhoods un upper Northwest DC.  This week the early bloomers are giving way to the middle bloomers, then come the late bloomers – sort of like me!  So the display will last through most of the month of May. 

Between 1908 and 1940, Sears Roebuck is said to have sold about 100,000 homes from their catalogue.  They came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and Rosemary Thornton’s book, The Houses That Sears Built, gives lots of details on how they were built and how to spot one.

They became popular after World War I, filling a demand around the country for homes for returning servicemen starting families, as well as immigrants coming through Ellis Island.  They were affordable, and supposedly very easy to build.

My former in-laws owned a one of these homes on Morrison Street here in Washington.  It is one of many Sears houses located in Chevy Chase, a favorite Upper Northwest neighborhood in the capital.  

The original owners ordered it from the Sears catalogue, in 1930 according to the public records.  It was delivered to Union Station, and the streetcars attached a flatbed that transported the kits to what was then a far suburb with scattered houses and farms.  The shipment included every piece of mill-work, plumbing, hinges and everything else needed to build the house.  The contractors had to lug it all from the streetcar stop on Connecticut Avenue to three blocks east.  Then they assembled the house, which today is still an example of wonderful workmanship.

Ms. Thorton’s book has great information about how to identify these homes.  The Morrison Street house is pretty classic – one giveaway is the front porch mill-work, and another is the wide overhang of the roof on the house and porch.  

The styles range from bungalow to foursquare to Adams Family.  Many Sears houses have been messed with (those darned architects!), and it can take a lot of research to make sure whether a particular house is or is not an authentic catalogue home.  If you want to learn more, I thing that Rosemary Thornton's book is a great place to start.