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If Woodley Park is the premier condominium site in the District, then Foxhall Road is the best site for a single-family home. For more than a century, Foxhall Road has been home to Washington’s elite, including business leaders, philanthropists, and notable political fi gures. Now two historic estates, “Dunmarlin” at 2101 Foxhall Road N.W., and the Casey Estate, originally known as “Valley View Farm” at 1801 Foxhall Road N.W., are being subdivided and sold off in what could be termed the largest residential
land redistribution in Northwest Washington’s modern history. Phillips Park, LLC, a consortium of four investors led by First Capital Trust of Miami, is subdividing the 16-acre former estate of philanthropists and art afi cionados Marjorie and Duncan Phillips to create a new community offering 46 estate home sites, 13 of which will have Foxhall or W Street N.W. addresses. The price of a 9,000-square-foot lot starts at around $1.1 million, with the 17,000 squarefoot parcels priced at nearly $2 million. Sites will support 4,500- to 9,000-square-foot custombuilt residences designed and constructed by a selection of world-class architects and builders recommended by the Phillips Park consortium. The developers reportedly paid $21 million for the estate while the cost of the project is estimated to be $90 million. According to Phillips Park project coordinator Kelly Biggs, more than 30 percent of these rare home sites are under contract, and settlements are already underway. Sales are being handled by Susan
Maguire with Long and Foster and Kimberly Gibson with Arnold Bradley Sergeant Davy and Chew. The wealthy buyers are said to be a
mix of families, singles and empty-nesters. |
Phillips Park investors were originally interested in buying the nearby Brady Estate, where cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather
Post once lived while her own Linnean Avenue mansion was being built. But they found the Phillips property more desirable. Betty Brown Casey, the widow of Montgomery County real estate developer Eugene B.Casey, had purchased the 16.5-acre property in 2001 for $16.5 million in what was the area’s largest-ever private real estate transaction. After plans for a D.C. mayoral residence fell through, she sold it to the Friends of St. Patrick’s, a parents’ group associated with St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School for approximately $25 million. St. Patrick’s will have Elm Street Development and Michael Harris Development, Inc., (jointly know as Elm Street) construct 28 new single-family homes on the southern portion of the property. Phillips Park and the Elm Street Development probably offer the last opportunity in Washington to build a custom home on such historically grand estates and in
both cases the developers’ principal concession to going green is likely their commitment to preserving the properties’ open spaces, verdant growth and vegetation. Elm Street is said to have a reputation for its commitment to protecting nature, and Phillips Park developers are currently working with arborists and forestry engineers to maintain and supplement their property’s mature trees and foliage. Ultimately, both developments will want to lay claim to multimillion-dollar homes situated on lush, landscaped gardens backing to parkland because what is good for the environment is increasingly good for the pocketbook.
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