Just A Bit Bigger Than a Doll's House

Tiny Homes, Once Built For 'the Poorest People,' Have an Outsized Appeal
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
Special to The Washington Post

The average size of a new house built in the United States last year was 2,324 square feet. Linda Crowley Horger's circa 1890 place on Capitol Hill would practically fit in the family room.
Two stories high and two rooms deep, the house is a scant 552 square feet. Her tiny kitchen has a microwave but no oven and no dishwasher. The counter has a sink, a two-burner electric cooktop and enough counter space to butter toast. There's no central air conditioning -- she hasn't figured out where to put the paraphernalia -- and there's no washer and dryer.

It was exactly the kind of house she had in mind when she moved here from Philadelphia 20 years ago.

Trading the Tool Shed for Party Space

Dressed-Up Structures Can Revitalize Your Back Yard
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
Special to The Washington Post

Garden designer Jane MacLeish once installed a 400-square-foot tent at the home of a Syrian oil magnate and his wife in the District's Kalorama neighborhood.

It was set beside the pool on a pink granite terrace, surrounded by pale pink tulips, peonies and roses to match the wife's jewelry.

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Cultivating your Home's First Impression

By Stephanie Cavanaugh
Special to The Washington Post


When Alex Dencker, manager of Behnke Garden Center in Beltsville, put his red brick colonial in Silver Spring on the market late last summer, his window boxes exploded with crotons, creeping Jenny and New Guinea impatiens in blazing shades of red, orange and yellow.

Talk about curb appeal.

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Centuries of Drama at Halcyon House

By Stephanie Cavanaugh
Special to The Washington Post

In Greek mythology, a halcyon was a bird said to calm rough seas. "It also means peaceful and prosperous," real estate agent Hugh Oates said.

That about sums up Georgetown's Halcyon House.

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Desperately Seeking St. Augustine

To Get to the Heart of This Quirky Old City, You Just Have to Know Where to Look
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
Special to The Washington Post

Each year, when we visit my sisters in Palm Beach County, my husband, Gregory, and I take a side trip in search of our perfect version of Florida, on the off chance that we might someday retire. Someplace close to family, but not too close, if you know what I mean.

Much of what we've seen is as weird as a Carl Hiaasen novel, which has its appeal. But a touch of the gothic (in atmosphere and maybe some Gothic revival architecture) is required, and that's the harder touch to find. Savannah in Florida, I'm thinking, or Key West (so far the closest thing to Our Vision) without the hundred-mile hurricane evacuations.

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Don't Lose a Sale by a Nose

Flower, Sour, Sweat, Wet and Weird Smells Bring the House Down
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
Special to The Washington Post

The group of real estate agents finished the tour of a house that was about to come on the market and fled, holding their noses.

"It smelled like urine," sniffed one of the agents, who spoke anonymously because she wants to remain in the business. "I don't know what . . . they were doing in there. Some of these houses I don't think they ever opened a door or window. It's a big petri dish."

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Main Street Turns a Corner

Urbanites Drawn to Cumberland, Md., by Small-Town Potential
By Stephanie Cavanaugh
Special to the Washington Post

Jorge Zamorano whipped out a copy of the Cumberland Times-News from behind the bar at the Starfish Cafe, one of two restaurants he owns on Capitol Hill.

The newspaper trumpeted a 17 percent increase in housing prices in the Western Maryland town over the past year. Zamorano, a Cuban-born artist and restaurateur, was pleased at his prescience.

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