The home, at 4301 Forest Lane NW in Wesley Heights, got here with historical past. One former proprietor was Frederick Ayer Jr., who served as an FBI particular agent in the United States and Europe throughout World War II and was concerned in a navy help program in Greece after the struggle. He is remembered for serving to resolve the homicide in 1948 of CBS’s chief Middle Eastern correspondent and for his books, which embrace a memoir of a well-known uncle, Gen. George S. Patton.
Another proprietor, Nancy Young Duncan, was nationwide treasurer of Planned Parenthood in the Nineteen Seventies and helped discovered the Center for Youth Services, a program that offered an array of companies to D.C. youth. She additionally served on the board of the Hillwood Estate Museum & Gardens in Washington.
Across the road is the home occupied by Richard M. Nixon and his spouse, Pat Nixon, throughout his vice presidency. Before the Nixons’ tenure, the property was owned by Homer Stille Cummings, chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1919 and 1920 and the U.S. lawyer common beneath President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1939.
Current neighbors embrace Anthony S. Fauci, former longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell and a daughter and grandchildren of former secretary of state Madeleine Albright.
The present homeowners at 4301 Forest Lane, former Newsweek correspondent Richard Sandza and his spouse, Elizabeth, now follow regulation at a agency of their very own.
They are downsizing and transferring to Georgetown, they mentioned, however not earlier than renovating almost each a part of the home, together with the basement. They connected a Juliet balcony to the major bed room, put a patio in the yard and put in extra home windows all through.
The home has 4 ranges, together with the completed basement.
The principal degree, the first ground above the basement, has a eating room, an up to date kitchen, a breakfast nook with a excessive ceiling, a lounge with a wood-burning fire and a glass-walled sunroom that the Sandzas upgraded from a screened porch.
The structure is “great for entertaining,” Elizabeth mentioned in an electronic mail, “because it has a huge dining room and so many rooms in which to socialize on the first floor.” She held a yearly Christmas open home for the neighbors, and as soon as hosted a reception for Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s nonvoting delegate to Congress.
The major bed room suite, with en suite lavatory, is on the second ground, which additionally has a household room with a wood-burning fire, three extra bedrooms and two extra bogs. Besides the balcony, latest renovations to the major suite embrace an up to date lavatory and a dressing room.
The prime degree has one other bed room with an en suite lavatory.
The basement has a recreation room with a wood-burning fire, a laundry room and space for storing in addition to an in-law suite that features a kitchenette, a bed room and an en suite lavatory.
The again of the home is lined with beech bushes. The yard has a wooden deck, a flagstone patio and a cabana-style lounge. The property is inside strolling distance to Glover Archbold Park.
- Bedrooms/bogs: 6/6
- Approximate square-footage: 6,100
- Lot measurement: 0.43 acres
- Features: This 1931 home has a lounge with a wood-burning fire, a rec room with a wood-burning fire, a household room with a wood-burning fire, a cathedral ceiling and built-in shelving, and a sunroom. The kitchen has a butler’s pantry and a breakfast nook. An in-law suite on the basement degree has a kitchenette, a bed room and an en suite lavatory. There is a patio in the yard.
- Listing agent: Robert Hryniewicki, Adam Rackliffe, Christopher Leary and Micah Smith, HRL Partners at Washington Fine Properties