Neighborhood News

The Wall Street Journal
Own Magazine
September 2010

Neighborhood News

Whether your preferred lifestyle is stately, trendy, salty or spicy--or a mix that’s all your own--the neighborhoods of Washington and the towns that surround our capital city offer as many options as Godiva has fillings.

Georgetown

Deborah Gore Dean is hunting for a new location for her eponymous shop, which has been selling high-end home furnishings and gifts in Georgetown for the last 20 years. She's not going far. "Where else are you going to put a store?" she asks rhetorically. "Georgetown is one of those truly unique places. It's Paris, it's London, it's Manhattan. Everyone knows it. Whether it's for the shopping, the history, the university...there's something very romantic about it and I love it.”

After the Smithsonian and White House and the Capitol, Georgetown is the most popular destination in Washington, and perhaps the most coveted residential area –  both in fact and fiction. JFK and Jackie Kennedy lived here in their salad days, over 100 novels have been set here, and who can forget those tumble-down stairs from the film The Exorcist? 

Like several other historic areas of DC, Georgetown is protected by a preservation society, preventing visible modernizations to homes that range from imposing Federal and Victorian-era mansions to frame houses so low ceilinged that 6-footers need to watch their heads.

Second Life

Wall Street Journal

Own Magazine

September 2010

With mortgage prices at record lows and vacation home prices ready to soar, it's time to stop dreaming and start shopping for a second home.

Dupont Circle residents Tim Ayers and Christine Smith have long been dividing their time between the city and a weekend retreat. First there was the condo in Ocean City, now there are ten bucolic acres in Sperryville, Virginia with a view of Old Rag Mountain.

Beach vs the mountains? "You don't go to Ocean City for tranquility," he says. "We finally liked the mountains better. It's extraordinarily beautiful."

The couple, "I'm in PR, she's in HR," he quips, are part of an expanding pocket of city that have discovered this western smidge of Virginia, just a  couple of hours from downtown D.C., where people often live on plots the size  of small towns.

Going the Distance

The Wall Street Journal

Own Magazine

September 2010

No more "leave on Friday back by Sunday." With Smartphone, Netbook and iPad in tow, New York home buyers looking for a second site are heading for greener, calmer -- and balmier -- pastures, sometimes several climate zones away.

Now, with telecommuting becoming the coveted mode--and traffic to and from some of the more typical getaway hot spots remains as challenging as ever--retreats in exotic (or at least temperate) locales are worth contemplating.  In fact, some might be in quicker reach than Fire Island on a holiday weekend.