Back in mid-March the “easygard house” at 605 Florida Ave, NW in Ledroit Park was nominated for a horse’s ass award. Following is an email from the owner’s son providing a different perspective:
“I am the son of the owner of 605 Florida Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 2001. Since you ran a story regarding my mother’s property in March 2010, I would like the opportunity to respond.
My family has owned 605 Florida Avenue N.W. Washington, D.C. 2001 since 1987 — 22 years. There is still a mortgage on the property. My parents purchased the property with the goal of one day making it into their office. During the drug laden 1980s and 1990s, when very few of the individuals–who are now so interested in DC properties–would invest in the area, my parents bought the house from the descendants of the family who built the house — the Lynches. It had been on the market for more than a year. Back then, they rented the house to college students. College students can be difficult tenants and sometimes, indifferent to old properties and destructive. My father took over as his office, after retiring from the District Government in 1991. He worked on many notable projects as an architect public and private, including what was then-the new Dunbar High School and Howard University’s Law School Library.
Nevertheless, my father got sick, lung and throat cancer. He underwent a operation in 1998 and died in 2002. I had personally begun working in 2000 while he was sick. I am a lawyer by training; however, my father was and mother were both architects. My father was raised by this grandfather a carpenter, he could be build decks, etc., and I am a reasonable hack and can frame.
Continues after the jump. (more…)
