Real Estate: Extensive Refurbishing Planned for 1850s Scott-Grant House
By • September 25, 2023 One Comment 1402
Big news on the Scott-Grant House at 3238 R St. NW. Extensive refurbishments are in the works.
Built in the late 1850s, the site was a place former President Ulysses S. Grant called home after the Civil War. It also served as a retreat for Grant while he was president — a summer White House of sorts.
Later, during the New Deal, two of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Brains Trust (Thomas Corcoran and Benjamin Cohen) rented the home along with other lawyers who drafted key legislation which included constraints and protections on the banking industry as well as ways to rekindle the economy.
The home, built by A.V. Scott in 1858, is of the Italianate style popular in the mid-19th century. During the Civil War, Scott went south and rented his home to Union General Henry Halleck. The home was all but abandoned for years (the last purchase was nearly 40 years ago by billionaire Robert Bass). That is, until this past summer when a local family bought the home for $17.5 million. They hope to renovate historic structures on the property, tear down another non-historic structure and build two new homes. Basically, they hope to turn it into a family compound of sorts.
There are plans for a new, two-story house built on the southern end of the property, where the new owner’s parents live and to connect it to the main house via landscaping. A smaller home to the east of the main house will be torn down. There are also plans to build a new home in its place where one of the adult children will be an owner.
According to Georgetown Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Topher Mathews, the property is in his district. He says that he will be the main contact on it and that plans for the site will be on the Oct. 2 ANC meeting’s agenda.
I remember that in the ’90’s there was a fairly contemporary house on the south end of the Scott House property which the Bass’ got permission to tear down by agreeing to never build anything else there – I don’t know/remember any details. I wonder if new owners wouldn’t have to honor that commitment?