Robert Devaney • December 23, 2013

A bomb threat phoned into the House of Sweden caused the Swedish Embassy and other office at the waterfront building to be evacuated and caused street closures during the evening rush hours. As of 6 p.m., traffic in Georgetown and the West End was a mess.

“Someone left a message at the embassy switchboard Thursday afternoon claiming there was an explosive device in the building, at 2900 K St. NW,” according to WTOP. “Swedish Embassy officials say the building was cleared. However, bomb units are on the scene sweeping for explosives.”

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks tweeted around 5 p.m.: “Swedish press are reporting that the embassy in Washington has been evacuated over [an] Assange-related bomb threat.”

In the mid-afternoon, the Metropolitan Police Department sent an announcement through Twitter, concerning closed streets near the Georgetown Waterfront — specifically K Street and Rock Creek Parkway: “Police Activity Update: Street Closures will remain CLOSED until further notice.”

The MPD as well as the Secret Service Police were on the scene at 29th and K Streets, near the House of Sweden. Traffic was closed on Rock Creek Parkway, K Street between Rock Creek Parkway and 30th Street as well as westbound 26th Street at Virginia Avenue.

Robert Devaney • December 19, 2013

Mayoral candidate and Ward 2 council member Jack Evans met with supporters at the George Town Club Dec. 13. During the week, the Evans campaign hit the million-dollar mark in fundraising but wants another half-million, Evans said.

Wooing potential donors in the Grill Room of the club, Evans said he was “not just any white guy,” citing the success of development along 14th Street and his hand in helping Whole Foods set up in the District among several business and job-creating projects. He touted his “ability to run the city after 22 years of experience.”

“I believe this is our time,” the optimistic Evans said and added he thought with himself as mayor and former mayor Anthony Williams on the Federal City Council, that “would be a game changer.”

Concerning the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination for Mayor of Washington, D.C., Evans said that the “more people in the race, the better.” The candidate who gets just one more vote than the others wins the primary. Addressing Republican supporters in the room, Evans said that they could re-register as Democrats to vote in the April 1 election and switch back to the GOP later. The campaign is also pushing to get college students registered to vote.

Talking about affordable housing, Evans said he wants to find a way to keep homeowners in their homes and not having to move because of rising assessments and property taxes.

Washington, D.C., is the “fastest growing city in the U.S.,” Evans said, with 1,000 newcomers moving in each month — as well as the city being the number-one destination for recent college graduates. He said he wants the city to be on par with London and Paris.

As for public safety, Evans cited lowered crime and said he would keep Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier, if he became mayor.

Aside from what he called the “rosy picture” of D.C.’s economy, Evans said its public education was “one of the worst public school systems” in the country. He saw hope in forming some kind of partnership between public and private schools, noting that the area has some of the “finest private schools.”

Evans also said he had concerns about raising the minimum wage from $8.25 per hour to $11.25 per the recent City Council bill which he supported. The minimum wage is supposed to be a starting wage for the work force, he said.

Robert Devaney •

Georgetown University held its annual open house for neighbors Dec. 9 at Riggs Library, decorated for Christmastime.
University president John DeGioia welcomed the happy crowd along with council member Jack Evans, who spoke of how well Washington, D.C., was doing. DeGioia talked about Georgetown’s neighborhood partnership, the university’s new downtown campus near Mount Vernon Square as well as the recent event for D.C. school principals at Georgetown and the upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr., celebration at the Kennedy Center in January. He also noted that the party-goers were in the Healy Building, which was designed by Smithmeyer & Pelz, the same architects who did the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, and said he saw the two landmark buildings as bookends of education for D.C. The hostess for the party was the university’s Lauralyn Lee, associate vice president for community engagement and strategic initiatives.

Robert Devaney • December 6, 2013

Georgetown’s best-known Santa Claus is back on the rooftop of Jack Davies’s Prospect Street house, which overlooks the Potomac River, and welcoming all with a big “Merry Christmas” wave. It may your last chance to see him.

For several years, Davies has been putting up his 20-feet-tall, inflated Santa Claus on the back of his house with its grand vista of the Potomac River. Those entering D.C. from Virginia on Key Bridge easily see it, especially when it is illuminated at night. Davies — a philanthropist and businessman who is part owner of the Washington Capitals, Wizards and Mystics as well as founder of AOL International — said he is happy to bring a little yuletide cheer to people.

The rooftop of Davies’s house has something new this year: a for-sale sign on the railing. Yes, the house has been on the market since spring, and there is a good chance this will be the last time to view this not-so-secret Santa. (Perhaps it will convey to the new owner, if he wants to continue this new Georgetown Christmas tradition.)

And what about that Santa inflatable up on the deck? “The best $700 I ever spent,” Davies told the Georgetowner in 2011. As for that house at 3618 Prospect St., NW, check with Washington Fine Properties.

Robert Devaney •

Mayor Vincent Gray made it official Dec. 2: He will seek re-election as Mayor of the District of Columbia. Gray signed forms at the Board of Elections and picked up papers to be signed by at least 2,000 registered voters for the April 1 Democratic Party primary.

In a Dec. 2 letter to supporters, Gray wrote: “We are better off today than we were just three years ago. . . . I am running for re-election to build on the progress and achievements of our first term. We are accomplishing what we set out to do. Step by step, we are moving our city forward. We have built strong foundations. But our work is not done.

?“We will formally launch ‘Gray 2014’ next year. This is not the season when people want to hear from politicians. Now is the time for family, friends and celebration.?”

Robert Devaney • December 2, 2013

Over the last couple of weeks, Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc., the largest independent residential real estate company in the United States, has been celebrating 45 years in the real estate industry. Today, Nov. 25, it also celebrates co-founder Wes Foster’s 80th birthday.

Well known in Washington, D.C., and Georgetown. Long & Foster prides itself as a company that was “founded on the principles of integrity, innovation, honesty and good old-fashioned customer service—values it continues to support today.”
Here are some detailed from a company news release:

Long & Foster was founded in 1968 by P. Wesley (Wes) Foster, Jr., and Henry Long in a 600-square-foot office in Fairfax, Va. The company then comprised Foster, Long and one employee. It provided residential and commercial real estate services, selling about $3 million in volume in the first year. Since then, Long & Foster has grown to more than 11,500 agents and employees in seven states in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, and it is now part of the Long & Foster Companies, which also includes Prosperity Mortgage Company, Long & Foster Insurance, Long & Foster Settlement Services, a corporate relocation services division and one of the largest property management firms in the United States. The companies’ combined sales for 2012 were in excess of $48 billion, about half of which resulted from the real estate business.

“From the time I started this company, our goals were to provide the best service possible to our real estate clients, create wonderful career opportunities for real estate professionals, and do better today than we did yesterday,” said Foster, chairman and CEO of the Long & Foster Companies. “It is with great pride that I can now say Long & Foster has been doing so for more than 45 years. It couldn’t have been done without the support of my family and the many real estate agents and employees who have worked so hard to make Long & Foster such a successful company.”

“We are thrilled to be celebrating 45 years of success at Long & Foster as well as Wes’s 80th birthday,” said Jeffrey S. Detwiler, president and chief operating officer of the Long & Foster Companies. “As a company, we’re greatly looking forward to continuing to provide top-notch real estate services and the total homeownership experience for clients across the Mid-Atlantic region for the next 45 years and beyond.”

See the March 13th Georgetowner for a profile of Wes Foster and his company Here

Robert Devaney • November 26, 2013

You can see that the next generation is taking over at the George Town Club. You can see the changes in the windows that now shine in light through the first floor’s new design. You can even see that the club wants to be your second home. Call it the new cool or the club gets its groove back.

“We have carefully re-invented the George Town Club,” said designer Andrew Law of the elegant in-town club, known for its members involved in politics, diplomacy, business, academia and other professions. Founded in 1966 and rich in stories, the club of late had fallen flat but has undergone a design, culinary and leadership renewal that is attracting new members to the corner property at 1530 Wisconsin Ave., NW.

“The club feels relevant again,” said designer Deborah Winsor, who with others worked on the club over the summer. Sisal rugs brighten up a few of the rooms 10 in total — and linen fabric are used on walls to show off antique woodwork. During the rehab and carpenters’ work, insor moved and re-purposed furniture and then moved artwork from downstairs and hung new and contemporary art from Hemphill Gallery.

entrance door open to all of the first floor allows guests to glance from the entrance to the windows on Volta Place in the Grill — where simply, again, removing the drapery blocking the windows made the room appear new.

“Demographics are changing,” said club treasurer John Girouard. “If you don’t change, you’ll die. Just last week, we had 20 new applicants.”

There are more than 100 new members an amount ever increasing. Girouard is thinking management’s increased efficiency and quality control along with targeting the 30
to 50 demographic. There is new programming for the club’s calendar and talk of “date night,” where children are watched in one room while parents dine upstairs.

The Grill Room is the highlight right now, showing off the club’s new cool. The Reading Room and Living Room have been redone. Other rooms will undergo design changes.
The club’s general manager is Yann Henrotte with chef Martin Galicia making up the new menu. Working on the changes have been Law, Winsor, Girouard, along with George Town Club President Sharon Casey, Vice President Lynn Doran and Elizabeth Miller as well as restaurateur Bo Blair with his wife Meghan.

It was the club’s longtime leader Wyatt Dickerson, he of Pisces fame during the 1970s and ‘80s, and partner with the scandalous Tongsun Park, that recommended Bo Blair, he with the younger generation’s guest lists and of nearby Smith Point and elsewhere.

The club wants to be a place for Georgetowners to stop by for coffee before work or relax after work, not just a spot for suburban visitors. One member said he wanted more of a “Cheers” effect for young and old alike, classy but not stand-offish.

To that end, for example, the club is offering a reduced initiation fee for residents of $2,000 (monthly dues, $150; quarterly minimum of $240). Preview membership waives the initiation fee for one year. Those younger than age 35 can join for $750. There are also on-resident and international memberships with lower fees; foreign diplomats accredited to the U.S., O.A.S. or the U.N. are offered free memberships.

The club is open Monday through Saturday but plans to be open also on Sunday sometime in 2014. The club held several get-togethers to promote its new look and vibe. Here are a few photos taken at the George Town Club recently. [gallery ids="101547,149606,149616,149600,149608,149613,149619" nav="thumbs"]

Robert Devaney • November 25, 2013

With shopping occurring before Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and just in time for Christmas, property owner EastBanc and Jamestown organized a pop-up Cady’s Alley bazaar that features five e-commerce firms, which were happy to set up shop in the 8,000-square-foot, split-level emporium, located at 3330 Cady’s Alley, NW, between the Bulthaup and M2L showrooms within Georgetown’s design district. A Nov. 14 launch party introduced the clothing and home accessories brands: Tuckernuck (classic, preppy styles), Chubbies (radical shorts with American pride), Zestt (fresh home pieces and artwork), Read Wall (U.S.-modern, traditional menswear) and Victoria Road (handcrafted goods from around the world). The pop-up stores in Cady’s Alley will be open through Jan. 5. [gallery ids="101550,149573,149567,149579,149586,149587" nav="thumbs"]

Robert Devaney •

Once upon a time in America, a boy left Georgia to become a Virginia Military Institute cadet, then a soldier, and later an aluminum siding salesman. He turned to selling real estate in Washington’s booming suburbs in the 1960s and now commands the largest privately owned residential real estate company in the United States. The story of P. Wesley Foster, Jr., is the story of 20th-century American success.

Foster is the chairman and CEO of Long & Foster Companies, headquartered in Chantilly, Va. His easy manner tells a tale of an American life we hope can still happen today. Georgetowner editors got a chance to sit down with the real estate legend.
As his executive assistant offered us coffee, Foster greeted us in his modest—at least by Donald Trump’s standards—office. The space immediately telegraphs his main loves — real estate, VMI, America, football, art, his family and especially his wife, Betty.

Feeling casual with Foster’s disarming charm, one of us flippantly began, referring to Long & Foster. “I know all about you guys.” Foster shot back, “I doubt it.”

No doubt, Foster has built a real estate and financial services empire step-by-step, agent-by-agent and office-by-office for longer than four decades. Who has not seen a Long & Foster sign somewhere during a daily drive? Such effort to build the top independent real estate company in America is not for the faint of heart, short of time or low of aim.

These days, however, Foster can take it a little easier: “I get up around 7 a.m. and read the paper,” he said. He doesn’t arrive at the office until just before 9 a.m. Foster and his wife—a sculptor who taught at the Corcoran and was on its board—moved to a townhouse in Old Town, Alexandria, after spending 32 years in their McLean, Va., home with almost four acres. “I go for a walk with my wife when the weather is good in the afternoons,” he continued. “So, I leave the office around 3:30 or 4 p.m. … I’ll be 80 in November. I don’t work as hard as I used to.”

Fair enough. He deserves that, although he still visits the branch offices and sales meetings as often as he can. In Foster’s early years, the opposite surely was the case. His long hours involved a six-day work week.

It’s this sort of discipline that Foster needed to build his company, but he has had some vices along the way. The first of which has been a sweet tooth. He manages his love for chocolate, and even turned to candy while he quit smoking when he was 30. “I was dating my wife and carried around a little bag of chewing gum and lifesavers,” he said.

As to the impact of the recent economic recession on the housing industry, Foster is clear. “We went through about five years of challenges in the market. Our production went down from 2005 to – I don’t know where the low point was, 2008 or 2009 . . . and now we are fortunate to see growth once again. As tough as it was to do, we continued investing in our company and our people. That’s what makes us so optimistic going forward.”
Not that Long & Foster itself was immune from such miscalculations. Its huge Chantilly headquarters building is an unexpectedly imposing Williamsburg-style building that has a similarly styled garage with more than 1,000 parking spaces, which Foster has dubbed “the best-looking parking garage in Washington.” He is pleased that the company has just negotiated a lease for 50,000 square feet and looks forward to welcoming new tenants to the building. “It’s a beautiful building and we are quite proud of it,” he said. “I think our headquarters represents the stability and confidence of our company and our agents.”

Still, the economy appears in recovery—with the stock market hitting an all-time high and unemployment numbers lowering March 8—but Foster remains cautious: “I’m not sure that it’s going to be that great [a recovery] because the Federal government has to get its house in order. The good news is that our company is well positioned to succeed in any scenario. I learned early on that if we lead our team to focus on the basics – really taking great care of every single client, one transaction at a time – then together as a team, we can weather any kind of market and emerge even stronger.”

Regarding the economy, Foster added: “We still have some work to do.” And as far as a true recovery in real estate? “We are working our way through and are beginning to see a real shift in the market.”

For Foster, such an approach illuminates his life. At VMI, he was on the football team. “My playing wasn’t that great,” he said. “But I played, played all four years. I was a slow, small guard.” Working his way through, even then. Foster has never truly left his beloved VMI. “I’m on the board there,” he said. “I go down there three or four times a year …” In 2006, VMI’s football stadium complex was dedicated as the P. Wesley Foster, Jr., Stadium.

So, what brought Foster to Washington, D.C., and specifically, its suburbs?

“When I graduated from VMI, I took a job,” Foster said. “I didn’t go directly into the military. You could take a year off and work in those days. So, I delayed my military duty for one year, and worked for Kaiser Aluminum. They put me in the Chicago office. When I got there I hated it. I mean, it was a place a little southern boy didn’t want to go to. But, by the time I left the next spring, I nearly left with tears in my eyes. I had a great time.”

Foster served his military duty as many young American men do and served for two years in West Germany. He was in the 8th Infantry Division—“Pathfinder”—and served as a special weapons liaison officer to the German III Corps. (Begun in World War I, this army division was inactivated in 1992.)

When his time was up, Foster said he toured Europe, thus igniting his love of travel. “They’d let you get out of the army over there and for up to a year, they would send your car and you home for free,” Foster recalled with a smile. “You could get out and travel if you wanted to. . . . Well, I got out, and a buddy and I … drove my Volkswagen to Moscow. The United States had an American exhibition that year and [Vice President Richard] Nixon was over there speaking. Got tears in my eyes watching him speak.” (This was the famous “kitchen debate” between Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in July 1959.)

Soon enough, our American GI returned home, with no money to his name. Foster got his old job back at Kaiser Aluminum and sold aluminum building products to homebuilders in 15 cities across the United States. Foster ran the program for a year. “Boy, did I get tired of that. I’d get up in the morning and have to think for a while about which city I was in that day.”

Nevertheless, one thing does lead to another. “All the guys I had been working with at Kaiser Aluminum got interested in the real estate business because we were working with builders, and I thought I’d become a builder,” he said.

This English major seemed still to be undecided on his career path. “I thought about law school,” Foster said. “My two brothers were lawyers, and had I never made it in real estate. . . . I would have probably gone onto law school and become a mediocre lawyer.”

So, why think that way and why the success in real estate? We asked.

“The guys that really tear it up are very bright. … I think I have a knack for this [real estate] business and see things that other people don’t see. In college, I graduated in the middle of my class. I may not have graduated at the top of my class, but I think I was the most persistent and worked the hardest – that’s what, after all of these years, has driven the growth and success of Long & Foster.”

Foster admitted that he sees “opportunities that other people don’t pick up,” and said a large part of his success was due to the “companies we acquire, and the people we hire and team up with. We choose to associate with people that share our values – teamwork, integrity and a drive for results. A team like this can be magical.”

Before that powerful recognition was a beginning: “I happened to meet a young fellow by the name of Minchew, who was also from Georgia and was a good builder here in Northern Virginia,” Foster recalled. “I went to work for him selling his homes. Worked for him for three years.”

Foster lived in Annandale, “sold a lot of new houses . . . and met my wife here,” he said.
“I had a roommate at VMI who was a Navy SEAL doctor and had come to Washington to do his deep sea diving training, if you can believe it, at Andrews Air Force Base,” Foster said. “He went skiing one weekend and rode up the ski lift with a pretty girl who became my wife. He introduced me to her and said, ‘Man, I’m leaving town, call her.’ ”

From Connecticut, Foster’s future wife moved to Virginia to be near her brother, an Episcopal priest. “We raised our family right here in Virginia,” Foster said. He is a father to three, and now a grandfather to six, ranging in age from teenagers to a four-year-old, all boys, and all of whom he takes delight, especially the youngest.

Today, of course, some of the family is involved in the business: son Paul Foster looks after offices in Montgomery County and D.C.; son-in-law Terry Spahr runs the New Jersey and Delaware offices; and nephew Boomer (Larry) Foster oversees offices in Northern Virginia and West Virginia. “Even as a large company, it’s important that we remain a family company. That way, our commitment to our agents and their success is unwavering,” Foster said.

Before all these company positions were possible, Foster had to meet Long. While working in Annandale on a new development, called “Camelot,” a name which Foster still dislikes to this day, he met Henry Long, an Air Force bomber pilot. The two worked together in a firm and then decided to start their own. And what of those good-looking homes in “Camelot”? They sold very well despite that name.

“We both went to military schools,” he said of Long. “He went to VPI [Virginia Tech]. I’d gone to VMI. He had flown B-47s. I shot rockets. He was commercial, and I was residential. We’d start a company, and we flipped a coin. He won and got his name first. I got to be president. We took off. We were partners for 11 years until 1979. Merrill Lynch came along and wanted to buy us, and he wanted to sell and basically do what he was doing and that was being a developer. So, I bought him out of the company.”
Foster has been asked the question again and again. We asked again, too, if he would sell the company. He folded his arms, leaned back and said: “I don’t want to sell . . . We have brought together some of the best business minds from inside and outside real estate to take our firm to the next level, and that gives us a solid succession plan as a family-owned company. Not many firms like ours can say that.”

“Family members play an instrumental role in the company,” Foster said. “I’ll be a large part of this as long as I can, but my three children own practically all of the company now. So, that’s all set. They will keep the family company spirit and leverage our management team to make sure we are on the right path.”
Things may be set internally, but elsewhere, competition remains for Long & Foster. In one of the nation’s hottest residential markets, that’s a given. “Good competitors drive us to better ourselves every single day,” Foster said. “It’s a great incentive to stay on top of your game and advance your business.”

“For example, luxury real estate, particularly in the D.C. area, is huge. Everyone out there today is vying for luxury business – and while we do sell more million-dollar-plus homes than anyone, our competitors keep us on our toes. That’s why we leverage our affiliation with Christie’s International Real Estate for our agents and their clients. The Christie’s brand really matters – it’s immediately recognizable as ‘high end,’ and it gets us in front of the most exclusive buyers and sellers from around the globe. Only our agents can market with the Christie’s brand.” Indeed, the biggest D.C. sale in 2011—the Evermay estate in Georgetown – was sold by Long & Foster.

How do you deal with all the egos? We asked. “The best you can,” Foster wryly replied. “We give them all of the tools and the backing of a great brand – and they do what they do best – work with buyers and sellers.”

“I will tell you this,” he said. “What we look for, especially in managers, is good empathy and a drive for results. When we achieve this, it is a winning combination for our company, and most importantly, for our agents and their clients. That is the key.”
From start to finish, Foster can easily detect that. “I grew up fairly poor and went to college on a scholarship, and my brothers also went to college on scholarships,” he said. “We’ve had a fair amount of drive. Two were lawyers and one is a developer now in Atlanta. I am truly humbled by the success of the company and my team. It is an honor that so many clients put their trust in Long & Foster and our team of agents.”

At a Glance:
Long & Foster is the largest independent residential real estate company in the United States.

Long & Foster represents more than 10,000 agents at approximately 170 offices across seven Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states, plus the District of Columbia.

For 2012, Long & Foster’s sales volume exceeded $24.8 billion and with more than 74,000 transactions; this is up from $22 billion and 69,000 transactions in 2011. 2012 marked a year of significant growth for Long & Foster, seeing an increase in volume of 14 percent and a 9-percent increase in unit sales.

While Long & Foster was founded as a real estate company, today its family of companies offers everything customers need as it relates to buying selling, or owning real estate – including mortgage, insurance, settlement, property management and corporate relocation services.

Long & Foster Companies’ combined sales volume and equivalents for 2012 were $48.7 billion, a $6-billion increase from 2011 figures.
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