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Robert Devaney • May 3, 2012

Ryuji Ueno and his wife, Sachiko Kuno, founders of Bethesda-based Sucampo Pharmaceuticals and S&R Technology Holdings, have purchased Evermay, for $22 million, 55 percent off its 2008 asking price of $49 million. The purchase price of the historic 3.5-acre estate on 28th Street, which borders Oak Hill Cemetery at R Street, is a record sale for D.C.

The names of the new Evermay owners were first reported in the Wall Street Journal on July 22 in its “Private Properties” section. The buyers’ representative Mark McFadden of Washington Fine Properties spoke with the Georgetowner and confirmed that, indeed, Ueno and Kuno are the new owners of the 12,000-square-foot house and grounds, adding that they will continue the preservation of the estate, founded by Samuel Davidson in 1792 and sold by the Belin family two weeks ago, through a limited-liability company, Evermay LLC. The listing agent was Jeanne Livingston of Long and Foster, a Christie’s International Real Estate affiliate, whose other big sale was Katharine Graham’s estate on R Street. Livingston said the new owners would be “good stewards” of Evermay, a property which was once rumored to have caught the interest of Oprah Winfrey.

While the Japanese-born drug researchers Ueno and Kuno – who own a house on P Street – are not well known to most Washingtonians, they are known in philanthropic circles, such as the Washington Opera and the Smithsonian. The couple founded the S&R Foundation in 2000, a non-profit whose mission is to encourage and stimulate scientific research and artistic endeavors among young individuals – and “to recognize talented young scientists and artists for their distinguished work in fields of science and fine arts, especially those who contribute to U.S.-Japanese understanding.” Their foundation awards the S&R Washington Award and the S&R Ueno Award.

Ueno and Kuno’s Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, focuses on the development and commercialization of medicines based on prostones. Ueno, who is also a medical doctor, discovered “the therapeutic potential of prostones, which are bio-lipids that occur naturally in the human body.” The company markets the drug Amitiza for gastrointestinal disorders. One of the couple’s first successes was Rescula eye drops, the first bioactive lipid used to treat glaucoma.

Together, the accomplished couple holds several degrees from universities in Japan and the U.S. and have other interests as well. A Class A race car driver, Ueno is a member of the Leica Historical Society of America, Ferrari Club of America and Miles River Yacht Club. Involved in fundraising for the Washington Opera, Kuno was also cited by the Washington Business Journal two years ago in its list, “Women Who Mean Business.” She even studied in the neighborhood at Georgetown University’s International Business Management Certificate Program. Add to their resumes: “Keepers of Evermay.”
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Gary Tischler •

People—famous, a little or a lot—sometimes die in bunches, if not in proximity. There are years of age, gifts either used fully or not, and lives either lived fully incompletely that separate a quartet of famous, not so famous and marginally famous people who passed away in the last few days. Here then, lost to us and in one case to herself, are a world-famous and outsized painter, a Polish immigrant who rose to the pinnacle of the military profession, a great beauty and cinematic near-star, and a 27-year-old rock-and-pop star and Grammy Award winner.

LUCIAN FREUD, 88

Freud, by all accounts, never stopped painting, and achieved living-artist fame and status with prices for his work that were once associated with a Picasso.

He shared avidity for live experience and younger women with the great Spanish cubist, although as artists, their work couldn’t be more different. Everything Picasso stripped down and turned into clean lines, Freud put back in: flesh defying gravity in epic terms, folds and rolls of skin mountains, roundness interrupted by defaults and fault lines, the colors and veins and bits of hair and caves of navels. Confronted by a Freud portrait, small or often large, there was a resistible urge, but urge nonetheless, to somehow make contact. He painted celebrities—Kate Moss and an expressively skin burdened Queen Elizabeth II—as well as fat men from behind, and women with pendulous breasts. Beautifully-ugly, ugly-beautiful were combo words that came up often in out-loud contemplation.

He was that other Freud’s grandson, which may have accounted for his own tendency to confront fleshly truths with bravura and thick paint strokes. He was also a fountain of fecundity, apparently, according to one obituary, fathering some 40 illegitimate children which gave full meaning to the idea that he understood flesh intimately.

His portraits—the New York Times obituary said he “redefined portraiture”—shocked some, awed others. His work was in a Phillips Collection exhibition of several seasons ago called “Paint Made Flesh,” which included a generous dollop of Freud and Francis Bacon, his mad peer, who took the concept of ugly-beautiful a little further than Freud.

Two of his works, a huge man, in folded flesh, sitting broadly naked (Freud always said “naked” not “nude”) and a Reubenesque nude (not naked) woman stretched out over layered sheets and canvasses, were characteristic, and astonishingly moving.

JOHN M SHALIKASHVILLI, 75

John M. Shalikasvilli was a native of Warsaw who survived all the harrowing dangers of World War II, emigrated with his family to the United States, joined the army as an enlisted man and in an astonishingly full career would eventually become the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Bill Clinton’s administration, the first enlisted man and foreigner to achieve that rank.

In pictures, he looked wiry and scholarly, but he was the kind of military man who didn’t need to put on a camouflage uniform to look soldier. He was a Universalist: in the “peacetime” post-Soviet-Union-collapse world, he oversaw U.S. participation in the Balkan conflicts that came after the disintegration of Yugoslavia. His interest lay in the use of military forces and resources to help assist huge numbers of people displaced by wars including the Kurds in the wake of the Gulf War.

That kind of effort came out of a general who understood—perhaps better than anyone—the wrenching effects of war, the vast displacements, the great suffering.

LINDA CHRISTIAN, 87

The life and death of Linda Christian, who died of colon cancer, says something about the ephemeral nature of fame, but also about its stubborn durability in the information age.

The headline on the Internet news read: “Linda Christian, TV’s First Bond Girl, Dies at 87.” This probably means that these days James Bond is certainly better known than Tyrone Power, who in his time (late 1930s to mid-1950s) was a mega-movie star, handsome and almost pretty, who played Zorro and other swashbucklers, Jesse James, and King Solomon almost (he died of a heart attack on set and was replaced by Yul Brunner).

He also married Linda Christian, a gorgeous Mexican beauty with minor acting chops but great cheekbones. They produced two beautiful children before divorcing in 1956.

She made a few unremarkable movies, including one I happened to see a very long time ago called “Slaves of Babylon,” an epic without epic moments in which I believe she played Jezebel. She was also in “The VIPs,” which starred Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

The Bond thing? Turned out it was an episode of the live television series called “Climax,” the first but not last version of “Casino Royale,” in which James Bond—played by Barry Nelson—was called Jimmy. There is a YouTube clip of a black-and-white scene from the show featuring Nelson, Christian and an actor named Michael Pate. I met Nelson once when he was doing “Forty Second Street” at the National Theater. He never mentioned that he had played James Bond. How strange.

AMY WINEHOUSE, 27

The first thing that should get you is number, 27.
Not because it’s part of some rock and roll curse which caused other big name, substance abusing icon rock icons like Jim Morrison, Jimmie Hendrix, Smells Like Teen Spirit Kurt Cobain and Janis Joplin, to die at age 27.

The number is itself alone: dead at 27. Dead in her sleep. The difference between Winehouse and the other members of that club—and rockers die pretty much across the spectrum from puberty to the old age of Rolling Stones—is that she lived in this time where trouble-in-mind-and-body is naked and songs are see-through-reflections of a life on the world-wide web—which containeds a website called WhenWillAmyWinehouseDie.com.

Winehouse was a singular sensation with her eagle’s nest beehive, the sharp scars of her eyebrows and eye-liner, the burning dark eyes, the funky looking body, the tattoos up and down her arms. She could sing, no question. Her album “Rehab” unexpectedly won a number of Grammies which probably surprised hard-core rockers and gave her a certain amount of cred which she proceeded to flounder like Lindsay Lohan under house arrest.

Watching and listening to her sing “Rehab” or “Love is a Losing Game,” you hear and see her could-have-been-future, mixing jazz and soul with a tough yet vulnerable bluesy quality. But there was all that other stuff—the drugs, the booze, the addicted husband, the slurry comeback, and finally there is the end and flowers in front of her house.

She reminds me most of Joplin, who died of a heroin overdose, whose energy on stage and vinyl was undeniable and who always broke your and her heart with “Ball and Chain” then surged off to somewhere in the final, gurgling, blues sounds of “Bobby McGee.” Winehouse’s father said she was all about love. So was Joplin. Neither one seemed to think they deserved it.

Robert Devaney •

It’s not every day that one discovers a wallet belonging to a National Basketball Association player. Georgetown University student Ed Shehwen did just that last week on Prospect Street, where he found the wallet of the Detroit Pistons’ Greg Monroe. Shehwen’s friend, Chris Scribner who lives in one of the apartments at Halcyon House, tweeted the former Hoya Big East rookie of the year to come get his wallet. It took a few tries to convince Monroe, who is taking summer school classes at Georgetown University. The six-foot-11-inch tall basketball player pulled up in his BMW and thanked his fellow Hoyas for the find. Monroe (G_Monroe10 ) tweeted: huge s/o to @CScribs and his friends! #superclutch .

Samantha Hungerford •

After 102 years of operation, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center officially closed yesterday with a stirring ceremonial retiring of the hospital’s colors. The Medical Center, which provided care to present and former military members and their families, will relocate, splitting their operations between the newly renamed Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda and the Fort Belvoir Community Hospital in Fairfax by Sept. 15.

This Friday, Maj. Gen. Carla Hawley-Bowland, commander of the medical center, will transfer her position to Brig. Gen. Joseph Caravalho Jr.

According to an article by Meredith Somers for The Washington Times, the hospital’s former location, although it consisted of 72 buildings on 172 acres, did not have the space it needed to expand and accommodate the changing needs of its patients. The move has been planned since 2005, when the Medical Center received orders to close from the Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

At the new site in Bethesda, construction projects have begun to alleviate traffic congestion outside the hospital as an estimated 2,500 additional workers are expected to be commuting to the area each day along with patients and visitors. According to the Chevy Chase Patch, the intersections at Connecticut Avenue and Jones Bridge Road, Rockville Pike and Cedar Lane, Rockville Pike and Jones Bridge Road and Old Georgetown Road and Cedar Lane are all scheduled to be improved.

Stephanie Shin •

It’s that time again! Well…almost. For those of you who have been waiting patiently, Washington D.C.’s Summer Restaurant Week is just a couple weeks away; however, if you’ve never participated in one of this city’s most highlighted events, then make sure you don’t miss out this time.

From Aug. 15 through 21, over 200 restaurants from the Metropolitan area invite friends, families, and even visitors to try the best eats of the area at the most unbeatable prices. Whether it is at 1789, a Georgetown restaurant where the Obamas recently dined, or at one of the 2011 RAMMY Award-winning restaurants like Wolfgang Puck’s The Source, lunch is priced at $20.11 and dinner is $35.11 for a fixed three-course menu.

In a recent press release, Lynne Breaux, president of the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington said, “The D.C. area restaurant scene is certainly hot. We have seen a great number of new restaurants open throughout the last year and many are participating in Summer Restaurant Week – offering guests the chance to enjoy, perhaps a place they’ve never been before or visit an old favorite at an excellent value.”

A full list of participating restaurants can be found at RestaurantWeekMetroDC.org. Check which fine dining or casual restaurants interest your taste buds and make a reservation online or by calling in. Hurry as seats fill quickly!

As you close summer 2011, make sure to keep D.C. Beer Week in mind too.

Coinciding with Restaurant Week, from Aug. 14 through 21, various breweries and taps will have a selection of beers and cocktails offered at special prices. The variety of events and deals will take place depending on the time, day, and location. To find more information about the participating bars, visit DCBeerWeek.net.

Robert Devaney •

Kate Michael, online magazine founder of K Street Kate, celebrated the fifth birthday of her D.C. lifestyle blog July 27 at the National Press Club ballroom with drinks and music, themed to “Livin’ La Vida Local.” The media entrepreneur thanked her staff and said she sees a bright future for hyperlocal websites. Friends and fans of the popular Michael, a former Miss D.C., congratulated her for hitting the anniversary whose traditional gift is one made of wood. Life is local and ironic, too.

Shannon McGovern •

Hey, Georgetowners! To liven up these hot, “dog days,” we’re taking time to give a hats-off and a good belly rub to man’s best friend, who sticks with us in any weather. Send us pictures of of your pooch along with names (theirs and yours) and your contact information to samantha@georgetowner.com and one lucky doggy will be featured as the face of our “Dog Days of August” issue. The rest will be included online in our “Dog Days of August” photo album alongside our article highlighting the best outings for you and your dog in D.C. [gallery ids="100256,106899,106894,106889,106884,106879,106874,106869,106864,106908,106859,106912,106854,106916,106849,106920,106844,106904" nav="thumbs"]

Shannon McGovern •

UPDATE: Albrecht Gero Muth was charged yesterday with the murder of his late wife, Viola Drath.

Muth was arrested by D.C. police Tuesday evening and charged with second-degree murder after police found he did not have a credible alibi at the time of Drath’s death and found no signs of forced entry into their Q Street home. Muth allegedly has a history of violent behavior toward Drath.

The death of 91-year-old Georgetown resident Viola Drath, originally credited to natural causes, is now under investigation as a homicide.

Drath died in a bathroom in her home on Q Street on Friday morning. In his obituary submission to The Washington Post the following morning, Drath’s second husband Albrecht Gero Muth classified the cause of death as “head trauma resulting from fall,” but the results of an autopsy have given the D.C. authorities cause to begin a search for Drath’s killer.

Police spent the weekend interviewing the family and collecting evidence from Drath’s home, but have not turned up any leads as of yet. The home shows no sign of forced entry, and the police have not named any suspects or discovered a possible motive for murder.

A native of Germany and reputed journalist, Drath is remembered as a former reporter for Handelsblatt, a German newspaper, and as a columnist for The Washington Times. She wrote several books and was actively involved in foreign policy, particularly affairs involving relations between Germany and the U.S.

Robert Devaney •

All politics is local – and sometimes hyper-local – as Georgetown University students and long-time residents experienced during the opening community comment of the September Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC 2e) meeting held on Aug. 29. The issue was the redistricting plan for the Georgetown-Burleith-Hillandale ANC that adds an additional single-member district (SMD) within the university campus for a total of eight in the ANC. Students had put forth a plan that included an additional eighth and a ninth district for students. A neighborhood group, which included students, voted nine to six for a new plan that keeps most SMDs the same but adds an eighth district for the campus. The role of the ANC at the meeting was neither to approve nor disapprove the proposal.

Commission chair Ron Lewis opened the discussion of the re-drawn ANC 2e boundary plan, saying it showed “respect for political geography” and chose to round down the student MSDs to two. He then asked those attending the meeting to limit their comments of pro and con to three persons who could represent the larger group. Students in attendance – who wanted three SMDs for the university area – expressed dismay at the time limitations but rolled with it, sending Georgetown University Student Association president Mike Meaney and president of the Graduate Student Association Paul Musgrave to the podium.

Meaney asked that the re-districting be reconsidered, seeing it as a dilution of students’ voting power and suggested that his group might “appeal to the Committee of the Whole” of the D.C. Council. He reminded the current ANC of its 2002 affirmation “to full representation.” Saying that Georgetown University students make up “45 percent of the ANC’s population,” Meaney maintained that “equal rights mean equal votes.”

Musgrave, a doctorate student from Burleith, called the situation “disingenuous” for its “extreme malapportionment” and said the ANC must “be a truly representative body.” “Representation means representation by person.” He condemned the plan as “unfair” and “unjust,” and stated so “as a resident, a political scientist and a voter.”

In contrast, Nan Bell of Burleith and Cynthia Howar of Hillandale stood up and succinctly said they supported new re-districting plan.

Undergraduate Robert Biemesderfer went to the podium and dramatically held up his D.C. voter registration card and declared: “I am a full participant, I am not a second-class citizen.” Student Ruiyong Chen stood up to add that councilman Phil Mendelson does not support this plan.

Ed Russell, a Burleith resident since 1954, asked debaters to “consider permanent residents who pay property taxes.” Karen Cruise contended that 1,200 students live off campus and thus can run in their own district if they wish. In the hallway, later, the young Biemesderfer and Allan Wendt of Volta Place had a lively and civil conservation about the issue.

Next week, the plan will be passed along to the Ward 2 redistricting group, headed by Tom Birch, and will be likely approved.
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Robert Devaney •

The ANC approved the voluntary agreement and a new application for a liquor license for Malmaison, a restaurant – soon to open at the corner of 34th and K Streets – from the owners of Cafe Bonaparte. The new dessert cafe’s name is a reference to Napoleon’s Château de Malmaison; it can translate into “naughty house” or “ill-fated domain.” The Alcohol Beverage Control protest meeting is scheduled for Sept. 14.

In other design requests, commissioner Jeff Jones showed annoyance at the owner of 3254 O Street. The design for a second story above a back garage was denied, as Jones said that this scheme has bounced around for 10 years. Neighbors of the residence in question left the meeting smiling. Five Guys restaurant was asked to redesign its new awning with fewer “Five Guys” logos (not five) on the umbrella fabric. Designs for a planned four-story condo at Grace Street and Cecil Place was opposed as being out of size and out of whack with the secluded neighborhood.