Construction crews in Capitol Hill found unexpected surprise while creating a 20-car garage at Altus Realty Partners' The Maples work site a couple months ago—an old fuel oil storage tank. Last month, Altus received a permit from the City to dig out and remove the tank and continue work on the garage under the front lawn that leads up to the historical façade of this housing site.
"Given that it's a historical landmark, we were working with a city archaeologist and doing excavations pulling up pottery shards the size of quarters," says Altus Principal Charlie Kehler, "So how the heck we didn't find this fuel tank sooner was surprising."
Altus is renovating the historic home known as the Friendship House, and The Maples, at 619 D Street SE, as well as creating a multi-unit structure building and three new rowhouses alongside the home. The project includes 20 units total. Eight are one-bedroom units with an average of 750 square feet, six are two-bedroom units with an average of 1376 square feet, and three are three-bedroom units with an average 1870 square feet. Altus is also building three townhomes with 3285 average square feet.
The property is a little over two-thirds of an acre, or half a city block, from D Street to South Carolina Avenue and about 30,000 square feet, with 12,000 of that being new construction.
Designed in the Georgian style by William Lovering, the original Maples house and stable (which later acquired the current brick façade) were built back in 1795. The home was used as a hospital during the War of 1812 for wounded soldiers and included owners like Francis Scott Key, Quarter Master of the Marines Major Augustus A. Nicholson and former Secretary of State Senator John M. Clayton.
The current development project started a few years ago with groundbreaking back in February 2013. Because of the historic nature of the building, the developers and Cunningham Quill Architects had to go through a number of Historical Preservation Review Board redesigns over the last few years.
Real estate sales and marketing firm Urban Pace will be holding pre-sale of the units within the next 45 to 60 days, says Kehler. Many reservations for these highly desirable units in the City's most historic neighborhood have already taken place. Running price for the new homes is $400,000 to $1.65 million. Construction is expected to be complete by early 2014.
Lisa Spinelli is Elevation DC's development editor as well as a freelance journalist, copy editor and mother of two. After receiving her Master of Science in print journalism from Columbia University in 2004, Lisa worked across the country and in Italy as a journalist, editor and Web editor. Her website
LisaSpinelli.com has links to a smattering of her published clips.