Dent Place’s Derelict House Razed

This morning, the long, slow death of the ruined house at 3324 Dent Place, NW, was brought to an end.

A bulldozer moved onto the property, owned by Deyi Awadallah of Falls Church, Va., to finish off the 19th-century wooden frame house.

In Georgetown, where such a move is extremely rare, the neighbors on Dent Place are no doubt pleased, as the structure was seen as a site for vermin and an eyesore. Even, the Georgetown-Burleith Advisory Neighborhood Commission approved a raze permit in October 2012.

Last year, the ANC chair Ron Lewis said that such an approval to raze a structure was no something to be taken lightly. Today, when Lewis learned of the razing, he said, the owner and others had tried to save it but “we could not even save the material.”

A spokesperson for the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs – which has oversight of such a demolition – told the Georgetowner Nov. 12 that due process had been followed and that the razing had been on the schedule.

After being declared vacant, the dilapidated house was struck by a falling tree in August 2011 during Hurricane Irene, crushing its second floor. According to many, including the ANC’s Lewis, that was its “deathblow.”

One of the property’s highlights is that it was owned by Yarrow Mamout, a freed slave in Georgetown. Mamout died in 1823 before the current house was built. A beloved portrait of Mamout hangs in the Peabody Room of the Georgetown Public Library, not far from Dent Place.