With a prime corner lot on Albemarle and 32^nd Street that marks the beginning of the leafy Forest Hills neighborhood and overlooks the verdant Soapstone Park across the street, the owners sought a distinguished 7000 square-foot house whose orientation and features would take advantage of this unique site. We leaned into the large scale of many of the houses in the neighborhood and the imposing apartment buildings of nearby Connecticut Avenue to integrate the house into its urban setting. Daring, yet playful, massing maximizes the potential of the lot, and we distilled the form and detail of this new dwelling into archetypal symbols of a traditional gable roofed house with elegant stucco cladding and a steep metal roof. The monumental scale of the front door on 32^nd Street clearly signals the entrance point and the residence’s organizational structure. The two-and-a half-story central block – bookended on one side by the dramatic entrance wing and by the kitchen wing on the other – stretches along the length of Albemarle Street. The orientation allows no fewer than sixteen windows to take in the borrowed view of the park beyond, while the central massing emphasizes the spaciousness of the living spaces within. The generous living room offers light filled serenity and balance: sets of French doors that lead to a private terrace to the North are  answered by the eight-foot tall windows that face the park to the south. The kitchen responds to this sense of serenity through modernist lines and windows with wooded views. With its crisp volumetric organization, this house distinctly marks the beginning of Forest Hills, a stately difference in such a dense urban environment.

Photography by Gordon Beall