57 S St. NW
List price: $525,000
Previous sale price: $128,000 (November 2000)
Square footage: 1,594
Attention, artists with a fetish for Eckington: Your search is over. This Victorian row house has enough space to live and work in, and it even offers a smattering of artistic influences in its design. The back yard, for instance, showcases rocks, dirt, and wood chips in a style reminiscent of Georgia O’Keefe’s delicate desert landscapes. The carpet stains and the rust in the basement conjure up Pollack’s finest splatter paintings. Fans of dark hues—Rembrandt, anyone?—will love the color choices and the scarcity of electric light fixtures in the house. But the biggest surprise is for the classicists, who will rejoice when they see nailheads sticking out of not only the main staircase but also the back patio, where they affix the AstroTurf to the wooden deck—an innovation rivaling the Roman aqueducts.
Art accompanying story in the printed newspaper is not available in this archive: Photograph by Darrow Montgomery.