Real Estate

Jordan Hellmuth • August 9, 2013

As summer comes to a close, you can always find ways to keep the season going in your home. Turquoises and driftwood add beachy décor necessary to keep you loving summer even as the breeze and the temperature get a little cooler. Summer never truly goes out of style. [gallery ids="101411,154873,154849,154869,154855,154865,154860" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner • August 7, 2013

Amidst a graciously mild Washington summer, we are beginning to see the first signs of autumn coming around the bend. The weather will be warm and the sun will be out for at least the next month or two, but true Washingtonians are looking for signs of fall in other ways. Announcements for major fall museum exhibits are creeping into our inboxes. Theater tickets are going on sale for upcoming shows. And, of course, the auction houses are rousing from their brief summer hibernations of sorts, preparing to kick off the holiday season with a series of not-to-bemissed auction events, featuring a variety of collections of international interest.

While many are still preparing their lots, here is a peek at what?s coming from a few of our area?s major auction houses. With the New York auction houses participating in Asia Week during the week of Monday, Sept. 16, the over-arching theme feels a little like ?Treasures of the East,? with a breathtaking collection of Chinese and Japanese works, as well as items from Eastern countries.

**Bonhams**

*Ivory netsuke of a recumbent kirin by Okatomo*

*Japanese, 17th century*

**Auction Date: September 17**

**Estimate: $25,000 – $35,000**

Bonhams is pleased to offer the James A. Rose collection of Netsuke and Sagemono on Sept. 17 at the Madison Avenue salesroom. Netsuke are 17th century traditional Japanese miniature sculptures that doubled as small containers to store personal belongings. The sculptures evolved over time from being strictly utilitarian into objects of great artistic merit and craftsmanship. As one of America?s most dedicated and knowledgeable netsuke enthusiasts, James A. Rose, M.D., (1931?2011) was a member of the board of directors of the prominent International Netsuke Society and served for 23 years as the president of its Washington, D.C., chapter. His esteemed collection will be offered in its entirety. This mythical animal (1 7/8 in. long) shown reclining, forms a compact design, the details finely carved and stained dark, eyes inlaid in dark horn.

**Sotheby?s New York**

*Ritual Bronze Food Vessel, ?Zuo Bao Yi?*

**Auction: September 17**

**Estimate: $2 – $3 million**

This autumn, Sotheby?s will present a dedicated sale of ten extraordinary ritual bronzes from the famed collection of Julius Eberhardt, as part of their popular Asia Week auction sales. Distinguished by their provenance, which includes A.J. Argyopoulos, the Greek Ambassador to China after World War II, as well as the legendary Shanghai dealer T.Y. King, the group is estimated to bring more than $5 million. The offering comprises works of incredible rarity and importance including the ?Zuo Bao Yi? Gui, an important food vessel, Early Western Zhou Dynasty 11th-10th century BC. An additional highlight is the ?Mu Xin zun?, an exceptionally beautiful wine vessel, also Early Western Zhou Dynasty. Both pieces were included in the seminal 1954 Marco Polo Seventh Centenary Exhibition in Venice.

**Doyle New York**

*Xu Beihong (Chinese, 1895-1953)*

*Horse Signed (ur)*

*Seal Ink on paper, mounted on silk Imag*

**Auction Date: September 16**

**Estimate: $100,000 – $200,000**

Doyle New York will hold an auction of Asian Works of Art on Monday, Sept. 16, at 10 a.m. The auction presents the arts of China, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia, dating from the Neolithic Period through the 20th century. Offerings include porcelain, pottery, jade, ivories, scholar?s objects, snuff bottles, bronzes, screens, furniture and paintings. This horse painting is by artist Xu Beihong, a renowned Chinese painter from the early 20th century best known for his shuimohua (Chinese ink paintings) of horses and birds. Beihong formed a style that reflected a new modern China at the beginning of the 20th century, exhibiting his proficiency and knowledge of Western artistic technique with a stylethat expressed a native artistic expression of his homeland.

Donna Evers • July 18, 2013

It seems nearly impossible to suppose that two of the Founding Fathers and ex-presidents could have both died on the Fourth of July, exactly 50 years after their signing of the Declaration of Independence. But, that’s just what happened. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who made history on so many levels, forged a great friendship when they worked together during the drafting of the Declaration. Jefferson, Adams and his wife Abigail, were neighbors and confidants in Paris right after our revolution and at the beginning of the French Revolution. But, the two men were very different personalities, and their political views on how to run the country and deal with foreign affairs grew further and further apart during the 25 years between 1775 and 1800, when their rivalry and resulting animosities grew with Jefferson pursuing a more liberal stance with his Republican Party and Adams taking over leadership of the more conservative Federalist Party.

The rift became complete when Jefferson defeated Adams in a very bitter and tight presidential race in 1800, which many historians believe to have been the worst time in American history for extreme partisan politics in Washington.

Adams retired to his family home in Massachusetts, and the two men, who had exchanged hundreds of letters and hours of conversation over the years, literally stopped talking to each other for the next ten years.

A mutual friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush, also a fellow signer of the Declaration, was pained by the animosity between the two men which had lasted so long.

He said he had a dream about Jefferson and Adams and woke feeling that he had to intervene. So, he wrote to each and brokered peace between them, asking them to forget and forgive and remember their former friendship which had carried them through such turbulent times. That broke the ice and the two men resumed a remarkable epistolary friendship. Although they disagreed on many topics, their admiration for each other allowed them to discuss their differences without losing the friendship.

Shortly after the rapprochement, Benjamin Rush died and both Jefferson and Adams expressed their gratitude to Rush for bringing them together again. They continued to correspond for the next 15 years.

When the government decided to have a huge 50-year celebration of the signing of the Declaration in Washington, the two men were invited to speak at the anniversary.

But, it was not to happen, because by the time summer came, they were both too weak and sick to make the trip.

As the anniversary approached in Washington, D.C., Adams in Quincy, Mass., and Jefferson at Monticello in Virginia were both critically ill. On the morning of July 3, Jefferson woke up long enough to ask what day it was. When he found out it was only the 3rd, he managed to hang on until 1 p.m. of July 4th, when he breathed his last. Adams, in his sickbed in Quincy, Mass., would not have known that Jefferson had just died, and his last words were “Jefferson survives,” even though Jefferson had already died five hours earlier.

But it must have been a great consolation for Adams to die knowing that, 50 years after he helped to change the world, his own son, John Quincy Adams, was President of the United States.

Donna Evers, devers@eversco.com is the owner and broker of Evers & Co. Real Estate, the largest woman owned and run real estate firm in the Washington metro area; she is also the proprietor of Twin oaks Tavern Winery in Bluemont, Virginia, and a devoted student of Washington area history.

Georgetowner •

In the Internet age, auctions might seem outdated and irrelevant. Yet auction houses continue to be effective marketplaces for everything from fine art to gourmet wine to bejeweled dog collars.

For those unaware, auction houses are intermediaries between buyers and sellers — the original eBay. If, for example, you want to sell a diamond-encrusted Barbie, you could contact a house and arrange for the doll to be auctioned. These arrangements involve setting your minimum selling price, transporting your item to the saleroom, settling on the commission amount to be taken by the auction house, and signing a contract.

Or, if you wanted to buy an original Steve Jobs’s Apple computer, you could work with a specialist from the auction house to find your dream work. Then, when the auction takes place, you would bid in-person, over the phone, or online and pay.
This specific example is actually on auction through Christie’s until July 9.

Some of the most prominent auction houses include Weschler’s, Potomack Company, Sotheby’s, Bonham’s, and Doyle New York. Weschler’s and Potomack Company are the only ones located in the Washington area. The other companies have sales rooms in New York City and across the world.

To become an auction buff, here are the key words to know:
Auctioneer – the trained professional who conducts the auction
Lot – an object or group of objects being exhibited in the auction
Sale number – a lot’s identification code
Provenance – the history describing the object’s chain of ownership since creation
Chattel – the physical goods of an estate, such as furniture and cars
Auction block – the object currently being auctioned
Paddle – the instrument bidders use to communicate their bid to the auctioneer
Bidder number – a bidder’s identification number used on the paddle
Reserve price – the pre-established, minimum amount the owner will accept
Hammer price – the amount of the winning bid
Buyer’s premium – the amount paid between the hammer and total purchase prices
Ring – the auction location

Whether you’re searching for that perfect Roman sculpture to complete your living room or Moscato to complement your favorite dessert, these terms will help you raise that paddle confidently. Check out a few upcoming events for the summer and happy auctioning.

Sotheby’s London
Château Pétrus 1967
Auction Date: June 20
Estimate: $10,000-$14,000
Sotheby’s London will offer a unique day for wine lovers to experience a taste of the Finest and Rarest Wines. This sale will feature extraordinary collections from Bordeaux and Burgundy to the Spanish Vega Sicilia. Wine lovers can enjoy a tour of wines from the 1960s, all the way to the 21st century. These exquisite wines will be available in bottles and magnums. Don’t forget to look out for the Château Pétrus 1967, a wine that will leave you wondering and wanting more. This wine is known by experienced wine tasters, who recognize it by its rich, sweet and complex taste. It has a lingering “sweet” taste with a low concentration and density.

Christie’s
Tubogas “Serpenti” quartz wristwatch by Bulgari
Auction Date: July 17
Estimate: $3,050 – $4,575
(£2,000 – 3,000)
This jewelry sale at Christie’s is sure to be huge. There are 262 lots in the sale, with pieces from designers, such as Tiffany & Co and Chanel to Van Cleef & Arpels. In particular is the “Serpenti” wristwatch from Bulgari that expresses the elegance that Bulgari stands for and is a design that is being revived by designers today. The specialists at Christie’s explain the watch has a silver dial with Roman numerals and a bezel set with diamonds. There is a pink sapphire crown with a five-jewelled quarts movement to a sprung bracelet and 22mm wide case. The dial, case and movement are all signed Bulgari. The wristwatch is an iconic model from the Bulgari collections and would be a perfect addition to one’s own collection. [gallery ids="119049,119062,119058" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler • June 18, 2013

“We live differently today in terms of lifestyle, what people do, family arrangements, than in the past.”

We were talking with the highly in-demand architect Gil Schafer III about “The Great American House,” his Rizzoli published book, subtitled “Tradition for the Way We Live Now.” It is sumptuously beau¬tiful, demonstrating his philosophy and penchant for creating, restoring and building homes and structures right on the spot where history walks through the door, hand in hand with the contem¬porary and with an eye toward the future.

He was driving toward upstate New York at the time, and the tone was conversational and philosophical. From a man who has collected numerous awards and attention for his work after over 20 years as an architect, his journey to suc¬cess seemed almost pre-determined, if only for the fact that he comes from three generations of architects, plus “my parents (who were not archi¬tects) were always building stuff, making things. so I can say I came by my lot naturally.”

But there was more to it than that: the book and the vocation comes from living in numer¬ous places in different parts of the country. “My grandmother had a dark old house in Cleveland, where my brother and I spent time that I still cher¬ish,” he says. “I lived on a farm upstate New York in the Hudson River Valley and also spent a time in California by the beach.”

You can find much of this reflected in the kinds of projects his firm takes on from small things like stables or sheds, to large houses in the country or renovated apartments in Greenwich Village, to island homes. You can see all of this too, and especially in the dramatic, revealing photographs in the book, which give you a seri¬ous case of the wants and desires. While devoid of people, it seems full of a kind of dossier about people, information about the emotional and his¬torical environment in which people want to live.

When he talks, or if you read about his lec¬tures or the commentary and essays in the book, or the content of interviews in major like magazines like “Veranda,” “Town and Country” or “Manner of Man,” as well as the Architectural Digest or the New York Times, some common themes can be found. They arch around the ideas that arise from the tensions that exist naturally (in art as well as in architecture) between tradition and the modern, the historical and the contemporary. Not surprisingly, he has a reputation for being a stylish dresser. Details, those lying in the framework of the big ideas, matter.

He handles the language of architecture and expands it by mixing it with the familiar you’ll find lots of common usage architectural terms in the text and commentary of the book. But the writ¬ing maintains a conversational tone, inviting the reader in much the same way that he talks about such things. For the uninitiated or inexpert, this makes his work and ideas accessible not only to his clients but also to the casual visitor.

“You have to think about how people live today,” he says. “We live differently today in terms of lifestyle, what people do, family arrange¬ments, than in the past. When you’re renovating a large house, for instance, you can see certain spaces the small kitchens, the spaces where the butlers and servants worked, that kind of thing, which are either larger today, or don’t even exist anymore. We live differently today, but we can’t dismiss the attraction and endur¬ance of the past.”

Put another way, what we try to, he said and it’s also one of the themes of the book is to “retain the well-loved proportions, details and character of a traditional house while balancing holistically with the needs of our twenty-first century lifestyle.” He also writes about the “interior architecture and the fabrics, furniture and wall treatments, and how “the landscape surrounding the home must relate to its overall design”

“The Great American House” is Schafer’s first book, although in terms of the writing (with Mark Kristal) it doesn’t feel that way. It is about architecture, by a noted architect, to be sure, but it never seems so technical as to escape the boundaries, energy, and rhythms of daily life. This is perhaps the point.

The book is structured around three ideas and themes, with four projects and homes serving as dramatic, astonishingly beautiful profiles and illustrations of the themes. In the book, the cornerstones of a great traditional house are architecture, landscape and decoration.

One of the profiles includes Schafer’s home in the Hudson Valley, a bucolic, artistically historic setting, as well as the process involved in the design of a “new” farming estate for a young family, the renovation of a historic home in Nashville, originally designed by Charles Platt, and the restoration of an 1843 mansion in Charleston, South Carolina.

Home is where the heart is, but also where the heart was it’s about bringing the past forward, letting it breathe in the here and now, renewing itself in new atmospheres.

When he talks about his grandmother’s house, he talks in some detail how it felt at night, the land, the light, the way he could travel easily around the house as a boy and the dramatic fact that the house was pink. “It was pink,” he said. “It stood out. It had that vivid color. It was a wonderful thing to see.”

In the book, the writer remembers more. “At Melrose, there were all sorts of charm at work. The old horseshoe over the front door placed there for luck, an intriguing doorknob with the face of a man on it, a beat-up bronze bucket, overflowing with cut branches, an old leather satchel with the name Melrose on it filled daily with mail.”

These memories are inspirations for Schafer, because, as he says, “They inspired me to enter the family trade, so to speak.”

But they also find their way into the proj¬ects of his firms, his collaborations, his focus on how his clients live, what they want, and their taste in objects. The motto of his firm, G.P. Schafer Architect, PLLC, is “Creating places that enhance the enjoyment of life.” That’s probably an oversimplification, because the beauty is in the details.

In the book, you can find the details in Schafer’s accessible essays and writing style, as well as in the photographs. Schafer loves not just furniture, but furnishings, those extra details that are tactile in nature: the color of burnished wood, brass knobs, light and lamps. It’s all there in a full-page photograph of the doors on his Greewich Village apartment, fea¬turing brass rim locks with cobalt glass knobs and traditional wood graining. This description doesn’t encompass the feeling that this photo¬graph like almost all of the photographs in the book give off. That sun-baked deep brown stain of the door, the key in the look, the gold of the latches. The frame is a portrait not just of something but of someone.

There are some things you might remem¬ber from the photographs, even though you have never seen them. You remember rooms opening to the sun, thin chairs with decorated cushions, ceiling fans, staircases that make you a little dizzy with their elegance, a Greek bust in a bathroom, plush easy chairs, flowers, a ladder for a book case, gates overrun with ivy, well-worn but orderly books. With Schafer’s designs, you never feel as though you are step¬ping into a museum. You can sense that people live here, come up the driveway through the gate, stride through the rooms, open an elon¬gated, white-framed window and look out at an American landscape.

It is thus natural that Schafer should be who he is: his whole life revolves around his design, his collaborations, his office, the apartment, the Hudson home, the current and ongoing proj¬ects. He is one of those people blessed by doing what he loves. “It’s funny,” he says. “This is not just my work. It’s what I do, period. It’s all the travel, the buying, the scouting, the antiquing, of course, but the end results are the homes, and the best thing is working with the clients.”

When you listen to Schafer who studied at Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges and has a master’s degree in architecture from Yale, where he received the H.I. Feldman Prize, you realize he is talking about his own memories, homes he’s lived in and been a part of. They are at his fingertips, and the ideas make them tingle. He is a good memory keeper for himself and others. As he writes, “If a house is going to feel like a home, it has to create opportunities for memories, even in the small¬est moments of life.”
[gallery ids="101337,152030,152026,152020,152017,152040,152011,152043,152046,152035" nav="thumbs"]

Donna Evers •

Washington had a lot of lucky breaks in its early history. First of all, the blueprint for the city was drawn up by a genius with dreams of glory for the capital city of a brand new country. Trained at L’Ecole des Beaux Arts, Pierre L’Enfant no doubt was thinking about Paris when he drew the plans for the District, with the two-mile-long Mall and the wide avenues with parks and circles for monuments and statues. It took many years with lots of false starts, but the city finally began to grow into the grand pattern he laid out. In the boom period that ran from the 1880s through the 1920s, hundreds of elaborate apartment buildings were built in the District. There was an unusually talented group of architects available then, many of whom also trained at the L’Ecole in Paris. And they had the same big plans as L’Enfant. One architect in particular was able to build his loftiest idea, thanks to the newly invented method of steel frame construction.

The strange but brilliant Cairo apartment building at 1615 Q Street NW, was created by an ambitious young architect named Thomas Franklin Schneider. It is a jumble of Romanesque and Egyptian Revival with Moorish overtones and, if that isn’t enough, a sprinkling of medieval gargoyles. Built in 1894, it reached the monumental height of 165 feet. Besides its height, there was nothing shy and retiring about the Cairo. It had a ballroom, grand dining room, billiards room, bakery, drugstore and artesian well in the basement for its own water supply. The roof deck was popular because of the incredible views it afforded, but it eventually had to be shut down because guests would drop stones from the deck, causing horse and buggy accidents on the street far below.

The height of the Cairo upset a lot of people and it worried the city fathers, because firemans’ ladders wouldn’t be able to reach high enough to save people in the event of a fire. Then there were aesthetic considerations. Tall buildings would ruin the concept L’Enfant had for the city. It was no less than Thomas Jefferson who first suggested that the capital city should have a low-lying landscape similar to that of Paris, France, which is exactly what L’Enfant created. None of the fine buildings, parks and monuments would be seen if Washington became a city of skyscrapers.

Concern for the beauty of the city and the safety hazards the tall buildings created was great enough for the D.C. Board of Supervisors to set limits on new construction, so they adopted the Height of Buildings Act in 1899, which exists in much the same form today with height limits of about 130 feet, or 10 stories.

As we well know, boom economies don’t last forever. The economic groundswell of the Gilded Era in Washington ended with the Great Depression, and many famous builders bit the dust with the bad times. Harry Wardman, who was responsible for building more dwelling units here than any other single builder, lost $30,000,000 in the depression. Edgar Kennedy and Monroe Warren declared bankruptcy in 1932 and lost the Art Deco masterpiece named after them, even before it was completed. But, Washington’s legacy was all the fine buildings they left for us, most of which were converted to condominiums in the 1970’s.

So we were lucky. The gifted people responsible for literally hundreds of outstanding buildings that expressed every major trend, from Georgian to Beaux Arts and Art Deco, were first and second generation Americans, most of who designed their first projects before they were 30 years old. Thomas Jefferson and Pierre L’Enfant both got their wishes, and we got a cityscape of elegant buildings and monuments in an atmosphere that is unique among American cities.

Donna Evers, devers@eversco.com, is the owner and broker of Evers & Co. Real Estate, the largest woman-owned and run real estate firm in the Washington Metro area. She is also the proprietor of Twin Oaks Tavern Winery and Vineyard in Bluemont, Virginia, and a devoted fan of Washington history.

Donna Evers •

While historians generally believe the term “lobbyist” came from England circa 1800, it is part of our local lore that the term originated in the lobby of the Willard Hotel in downtown Washington. It seems that President U.S. Grant liked to slip away from the White House to enjoy a cigar and brandy at the nearby hotel. People in high places who wanted favors used to lie in wait for him, and hence the Washington version of the term “lobbyist.” Since the hotel’s 1986 period restoration, the lobby is so redolent of the 1860s, that one can easily imagine Grant stretched out in a velvet lounge chair behind one of the potted palms.

What you may not know is that another piece of 1860’s history was born at the Willard, before Grant was president and even before he assumed command of the Union Army. It had to do with the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, whose 150 year anniversary was celebrated this summer with speeches and re-enactments at the battleground park in Manassas, Va.

Early in the conflict, confident that they could defeat the South, the Union Army marched toward Richmond with the hope of bringing the war to a quick close. The North was so sure of itself that congressmen and dignitaries from Washington packed picnic lunches and rode their carriages behind the army so they could watch their soldiers win the day. Instead, the northerners met with fierce resistance from the strong southern army they encountered in Manassas. This was the battle where Confederate General Thomas Jonathan Jackson earned the nickname “Stonewall” for not giving up his position, and where the first civilian casualty of the war occurred, when the 85-year-old woman who owned the house on Henry Hill was killed in the cannon crossfire. The battle lasted five hours with many casualties on both sides, and ended with the Union army turning back and fleeing toward Washington. The civilians quickly turned their carriages around to head back east, got mixed in with the retreating soldiers, and created a massive traffic jam with panicked soldiers and civilians running in all directions.

As a result of this battle, morale in the Union Army was at low ebb, and the generals had a hard time recruiting soldiers. A New England abolitionist named Julia Ward Howe was afraid that the North might lose and slavery would not be defeated. So, she came to Washington to see if she could help. While Howe was in town staying at the Willard Hotel, she heard soldiers singing “John Brown’s Body” outside her open window. She liked the melody but thought it was a shame there weren’t better words to go with the song. When she awoke up in the middle of the night, she was suddenly wide awake and began writing verses to the melody, which she later sold to The Atlantic Monthly magazine for $5.
“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” became one of our most beloved patriotic songs, and on the front of the Willard Hotel, a plaque commemorates Julia Ward Howe for writing the verses that led Union troops into battle through the next four terrible years, until they were, as the song promised, victorious.

Here is one more story about the Willard: as we celebrate the new memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it’s interesting to know that he stayed at the Willard in 1963, almost 100 years after Howe’s visit, in the days before he gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. When you think of him sitting in his room going over the words of his history-changing speech, you have to believe that inspiration must live in those walls.

Donna Evers, devers@eversco.com, is the owner and broker of Evers & Co. Real Estate, the largest woman owned and run real estate company in the Washington Metro area; the proprietor of Twin Oaks Tavern Winery in Bluemont, Virginia; and a devoted fan of Washington history. [gallery ids="102541,120015" nav="thumbs"]

Donna Evers •

The Washington Monument is the single most recognized icon in our cityscape, yet its creation had a turbulent beginning, middle and end. And it’s not over, as the federal government has just committed over $7 million to repair the cracks caused by the 2011 earthquake.

To start at the beginning, in 1783, Congress decreed that an equestrian statue should be built to honor the father of our country. So in 1791, Pierre L’Enfant chose the perfect triangulated site in relation to the rest of the National Mall to honor George Washington’s initial career as a surveyor.

Fundraising discussions ensued in 1799, and in 1836 a contest was held to choose a design for the monument. Architect Robert Mills won with a design of a simple obelisk surrounded by a fancy rotunda, topped off by Washington at the helm of a chariot led by a team of charging horses. The fundraising goal of $1 million was slow getting off the ground, with only $30,000 collected by 1836, but construction started
anyway in 1848. It stopped six years later when they ran out of money.

The whole city made fun of the 153-foot stump that dominated the Mall until 1876, when construction resumed, but with a different color of stone (just in case Washingtonians needed a reminder of what happens when Congress starts a project).

The obelisk was completed in 1884, but not without controversy. For one thing, it was built on a completely different spot than L’Enfant had chosen. It turned out that the Mall was so swampy, the cornerstone Jefferson originally laid sunk and disappeared into the mire. So, a more solid site had to be found.

Then there was the incident involving Pope Pius IX, who donated a stone to the monument that was subsequently stolen by the infamous Know-Nothing Party in a wave of anti-Catholicism. At the same time,
two new variations of design were proposed. One involved creating an Italian bell tower at the top of the
obelisk and the other idea was to make it into a copy of “one of the better Hindu pagodas”, to quote a
local newspaper article.

The plans for pagodas, bell towers and rearing horses were scrapped and the simple monument stands as one of the best in the city. At 555 feet and 5 1/8 inches high – give or take a fraction after the earthquake – it remains one of the tallest masonry structure in the world, perhaps an inadvertent tribute to George Washington, who was a devoted Freemason.

Donna Evers, DEvers@EversCo.com, is the owner and broker of Evers & Co. Real Estate, the largest woman owned and run real estate firm in the Washington Metro area; the proprietor of Twin Oaks Tavern Winery in Bluemont, Virginia; and a devoted student of Washington area history. [gallery ids="100517,119152" nav="thumbs"]