The Willard Brother Who Built the Ebbitt House
Three Willard brothers ran the Willard Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. The fourth, Caleb, ran a hotel just as big a block away. He just had the misfortune of calling it the Ebbitt House.
If Walls Could Talk
What happened inside Washington, DC’s buildings. Hotels where deals got cut, rowhouses where scandals played out, embassies that hosted defections and dinners both.
Korea’s Logan Circle Legation: Sold for $5, Bought Back
In 1891, King Gojong paid $25,000 for a Victorian townhouse on Iowa Circle to house Joseon’s first mission to the United States. Nineteen years later, after Japan forced the protectorate, the empire sold the building for five dollars. Korea bought it back in 2012 for $3.5 million. The museum opened in 2018.
Martin’s Tavern Georgetown: JFK, Booth 3, and 93 Years
The man whose name is over the door at 1264 Wisconsin Avenue was a Boston Braves shortstop in the 1914 World Series before he opened a Georgetown tavern the year Prohibition ended. Ninety-three years and four generations later, it is still open, still owned by the same family, and still has a brass plaque on the booth where John F. Kennedy proposed to Jacqueline Bouvier.
The Cairo Hotel: How One Apartment Tower Wrote DC’s Skyline Law
A 35-year-old architect built 164 feet of Moorish-fantasy hotel into a Dupont rowhouse block. Congress hated it so much it made a law.
The Surprising History of Luther Place Memorial Church on Thomas Circle
The congregation built pews dedicated to Generals Grant and Lee, in the same sanctuary, five years after the war ended.
Hotel Harrington: 109 Years on 11th Street
From its 1914 opening to its 2023 closure, Hotel Harrington was DC’s longest-running hotel. Now KHP Capital plans to bring 436 11th St NW back to life.
The Abandoned Iranian Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue
The buildings at 3003 and 3005 Massachusetts Avenue NW have been locked and silent for 46 years. Before the doors closed, they saw legendary parties, student protests, 4,000 bottles of champagne poured down the drain, and hundreds of riot police. This is the full story.
The Tragic History of a Potentially Haunted Home in Adams Morgan
A peek into the tragic history of a purportedly haunted home in Adams Morgan: could the tormented spirits of the Walter family, who suffered immense loss and grief, still be lingering within its walls?
The 1910 Plan to Take Alexandria Back from Virginia
In 1910, Taft, Hannis Taylor, and Washington’s Board of Trade tried to undo the 1846 Alexandria retrocession. Virginia and a lame-duck clock stopped them