Georgetown Restoration
RESPECT LIGHT & PROPORTION!
In this historic Georgetown renovation, we worked with our client to make the best of a terrible situation: his childhood home, tucked along Rock Creek in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington DC, had caught fire. Nearly everything inside the home had been gutted, but the brick exterior walls, roof, and a few interior elements could be salvaged.
The project parameters were relatively unique – a blank slate in the interior of a historic Georgetown rowhome. Originally built in the 1890s, the home was expanded in the 1930s and historicized with Neo-Federal details. It is a rowhouse that is almost entirely freestanding – another rarity in the area. How could a gut renovation make a cohesive home in keeping with the pieces of context that survived?
The project involved careful restoration – or recreation – of certain details from the original home, but the fire yielded an opportunity to massage the floorplan toward that of a more modern, open home. To stay in keeping with the Georgetown surroundings, we took certain rules of proportion and light as guiding principles. The stair filters light from a new skylight above to a generous entry hall. The rear living space with open kitchen spills out onto the rear court via large steel glass doors and sidelights. Interior transom windows take advantage of high ceilings to transfer light. At the detail level, substantial yet simple trim & railing profiles strike the balance between old and new. The basement level was lowered to add a media room and bedroom suite to the existing three-bedroom home.