Popping up in Columbia Heights

by Prince Of Petworth — March 1, 2017 at 10:05 pm 52 Comments

11th and Euclid St, NW

I’m hoping this house goes for sale when the renovations are completed so we can get a virtual tour up there! Like the way it’s turning out?

Check out the garage after the jump.

J

So incredibly hideous.
- James W.
  
  Looks like someone dropped a trailer on top of the roof…
Lower CoHo

It’s a pleasing design and I have heard this is a single family home expansion and not a condo conversion. I particularly appreciate how they melded old and new elements in the architecture with color and clean lines to both blend in and stand out. If other pop ups took this type of care in materials and overall aesthetics perhaps we would not have the existing tensions.
- GBinCH
  
  You’re the architecture/owner, right?
  - Kate
    
    +1 I guess they are operating under a different understanding of the word “melded” than I am…
  - S Rabin
    
    Sorry my first comment didn’t go through I thought so I hit “post” again. I’m a nearby neighbor but I really like the design and as an urban planning grad student I appreciate not trying to have the pop up match the original. Never looks genuine in my opinion unless very well done like 13th and Fairmont.
    - Prince Of Petworth
      
      This is my fault – I just approved everything this morning without seeing the duplicate, apologies. I just scan real quick.
- Anonymous
  
  Agreed, very good looking – even better in person.
GBinCH

I think it’s going to be condos, so hopefully it will go on sale and I can go poke about in an open house.
.
When they first started on this, I was excited that something new/different was being attempted, but the execution hasn’t panned out. The weird, random panels are really ugly.
S Rabin

It’s a beautiful design and I have heard is a single family home expansion and not a condo conversion. I particularly appreciate how they melded old and new elements in the architecture. If other pop ups took this type of care in materials and overall aesthetics perhaps we would not have the existing tensions.
- Q
  
  You and Lower CoHo should totally meet–your tastes are so similar and don’t seem at all like a plant from the developer or architect!
anon

I think it looks kinda cool from the side but not into the view from the front…
Euclidresident

That is ex-DDOT director Gabe Kline’s house. It is not condos, just a pop up of the house.
- jeslett
  
  Well that I didn’t know, but I used to live near this and there have been at least minor renovations going on over the last 3-4 years, so I would doubt it’s a conversion anyway.
  Cool to know it’s his.
- Anonymous
  
  There are 10 building permits listed on PIVS, including:
  (May 11, 2016) This application is for a revision to an approved building permit, number B1502761, a third floor addition above an existing 2-story detached rowhouse w/ cellar. Work included in this revision involves a 325 sf addition above an existing garage already approved by BZA Summary Order Number 19066,
  There are renderings of the addition over the garage in the docket for the BZA case on the Office of Zoning web-site. The permit for pop-up on the house was applied for after the BZA approval for the garage.
  BZA 19066 Application of Gabriel and Stephanie Klein,… to allow the construction of a one-room addition on top of an existing garage for use as an office in the R-4 District at premises 1100 Euclid Street N.W. (Square 2865, Lot 115).
- neighbor
  
  This is accurate – it is a roof deck type add on and also an office space add on to the back of the house
LittleBluePenguin

hate it.
Deebs

This is awful.
Kate

I hate it- especially the view from the front, but I guess I just don’t have an architectural eye. I mean 2 completely separate commenters particularly appreciate how they melded old and new elements in the architecture, so what do I know?
- Linguistic Analyst
  
  Those two “separate” commenters are using verbatim language to describe their opinions … pretty sure it’s either one person trying to seem like they have support, or the homeowner is astroturfing the PoP comments section 😀
  - Linguistic Analyst
    
    Also I may have missed your sarcasm!
  - S Rabin
    
    Sorry my first comment didn’t go through I thought so I hit “post” again. See above.
Disgusting

I used to like this old house. How someone could butcher it with this hideous cubist mess is unfathomable. They didn’t even try to resemble the Victorian style of the house and instead rammed a modular modern mess right on top of it. Vile!
- anon
  
  I much prefer cubist to victorian. To each his own.
  
  My only problem is this looks like it will remain a single family house. If you split this up it would create 3 or 4 smaller and more affordable homes. Columbia Heights is going millionaires only.
  - Katie
    
    I don’t object to the cubist style in general- the garage isn’t my taste but I see what they were going for- but to just plop that box on top of the house like this is the height of lazy design- it looks completely thoughtless.
  - wdc
    
    Those “more affordable homes” would go for $800k each. I prefer there to be some options for larger families. We have enough DINKs in the neighborhood already.
    - JS
      
      Those options for larger families would cost over a million dollars. Does CH not have enough millionaires?
      - wdc
        
        I’m less concerned with family income than with neighborliness. We’ve had several family houses flip to condos around the neighborhood, and I can’t think of a single new resident who actually behaves like a neighbor.
        It’s sad, considering who they replaced: long-time residents who knew everyone and spent time outside and kept an eye on things.
      - JS
        
        This sounds more like a new resident vs. old resident thing, not a condo vs. SFH house thing. I mean, I have never seen the folks who bought the million dollar SFH gut reno on my block, and they’ve lived there a year.
      - HaileUnlikely
        
        FWIW in my neighborhood, where prices are across the board way lower but are escalating rapidly, I would generalize (admittedly overgeneralize) that the neighborliness of new residents seems to be roughly inversely proportional to the difference between the apparent (obviously imperfectly measured) standard of living of the new residents compared to that of their few nearest neighbors. Obviously working with a small sample size, lots of confounding, and subject measurement, but that’s basically what I’ve pieced together so far.
      - GBinCH
        
        JS – there’s a place in the 2700 block of 11th Street going for $2.2m! I didn’t think row houses in CH would get far over $1m, let along that high.
        .
        http://www.mrishomes.com/homes-for-sale/2703-11TH-ST-NW-WASHINGTON-DC-20001-195183556
      - James W.
        
        I think it’s less old vs. new neighbors, and more of a mindset. The urban living thing, in all its trendiness, has attracted a lot of former McMansion dwellers who (in my experience) seem unaccustomed to the close proximity of their new neighbors. I’m often surprised at the degree of aloofness I get walking down my own street…
      - JS
        
        GBinCH – that’s a three unit building that’s sat on the market forever. I’m really curious as to why the builder is trying to offload the whole building as opposed to selling the individual units.
    - stacksp
      
      Agreed. This more affordable notion doesn’t compute when they go for still for 3/4M
    - Cleveland Park runner
      
      DINKs need places to live, too.
- 13th & Euclid
  
  I live on this block closer to 13th and have to disagree. First off these houses are not “victorian” but a mish mash of federal and victorian elements. They were built as a subdivision (yes a suburb) of Washington at a time when tastes were changing which is one of the reasons we are not zoned historic, thank God. Second the architecture is not really “cubist” but “modern” in my opinion (If you are a student of architecture which evidently many of the posters here consider themselves). As a neighbor I wish I had paid more attention and attended a meeting to weigh in, but the designs appear to have been published for a long time based on the DCRA site and at the end of the day I like the color it adds to the block. Much of the other addition work in the immediate area has been without a permit and shoddy to say the least. I wish the anonymous neighborhood judgeyness was directed at these egregious displays all around us that have deleterious effects in more ways than I can concisely post here.
JS

…at least there are trees blocking the view?
.
The pop-up on 13th & Fairmont (subject of a post a while back) has turned out very nice. There are ways to pop up these old houses that don’t look hideous. This house is not an example of it.
- Euclidresident
  
  13th and Fairmont is a monstrosity. Look at how it crowds the neighboring house. I like this one much better.
mmm

I don’t normally comment on pop-ups, but this one is so terrible. Original house looks pretty large (and lovely) too…what a shame.
A

It’s awful. They lied about their plans when notifying neighborhoods about relief they needed to build. As a neighbor, we are all very unhappy and feel misled. Worse, it looks hideous, unfinished. It’s a single family – apparently he made renovations years ago when he was a bachelor that met his needs. Now, with a family, the floor plan was bonkers and needed a huge renovation (another floor) to make space for the new lifestyle
- also anon
  
  Weird. Redfin has it at 2500 square feet. I wonder what he did to it that made 2500 square feet not enough room for 3-4 people.
- GBinCH
  
  This sounds like grounds for a law suit.
  - A
    
    he blew out the second floor so there was just one bedroom up there but so he had 20+ foot ceilings on his first floor, essentially making it a loft…
Newtonian

Ack, my eyeballs! The “modern” look is already dated and cookie-cutter. This really drags down the character of the neighborhood.
14 and Euclid

I don’t mind it so much. Wouldn’t have been my choice for my house, so good thing for the architect it’s not my house. The garage in particular I think looks nice, though I still probably would have gone with something other than that yellow.
quincy

Awful. A big selfish middle finger to the neighborhood.
- RNolan
  
  If someone chooses to build a house with a design that they like they are selfish? Why shouldn’t the homeowner be able to build what they want as long as it up to code and zoning?
  
  If you want to have a neighborhood determine the aesthetics of your neighborhood then move to an HOA.
Anonymous

This pop up design is very unattractive
Tom

I do not like this pop-up, Charlie. Its smug aura mocks me.
MRD

fug-lee
Scree

I love it! Down with the old school and up with the new!
anon

I think it looks fine. Diversity in architecture is a good thing. People here act like they’re paying for this house and it’s being constructed for them. It makes no sense.

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