Georgetown Rowhomes

Thanks to a construction boom following the American Civil War, the dominant housing style in Georgetown is the brick rowhome. Whether you call them rowhomes, row houses, or townhouses; these attached and semi-detached dwellings are icons of class and charm and they do not come cheap. The modest, 1895-built house at 3419 Q St NW where John F Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier first met just hit the market for a cool $1,725,000.

The majority of Georgetown rowhomes are Federal or Victorian in style and are quite tastefully unique--many with English basements, offering considerable rental potential. As is the case in many of DC’s historic districts, architectural variance becomes a viable motif, provided that the buildings are well preserved. Georgetown is perhaps the most stringent neighborhood in the District with regard to preservation and planning.

An obvious draw of Georgetown rowhomes is walkability. Georgetown’s industrial past (tobacco, flour, paper, etc.) led to the convenient proximity of housing and business, and the commercial corridors of Wisconsin Ave NW and M St NW are never far away.

It is easy to associate rowhomes with a lack of space, but in Georgetown, this is far from accurate. Many Georgetown rowhomes were planned and built individually or as part of a small set, rather than the more uniform rowhomes of the District’s younger neighborhoods that go on for blocks at a time. Check out this prominent triple-aspect house at 2928 P St NW, boasting over 5,100 square feet. It is quite common for rowhomes to extend closer to or farther from the street than their neighbors, creating a sideways topography that adds to the neighborhood’s historical charm.

The attached nature of these gorgeous houses simply highlights the popular desire to live in Georgetown. Rowhome owners are well poised to float effortlessly between well-earned peace and quiet, and the urban buzz, community, and history that led them to call Georgetown home in the first place. One could even say that The District of Columbia itself was born in a Georgetown rowhome. The dinner that included the sale of land for the Federal City was hosted in the Forrest-Marbury house at 3350 M St NW.