The converted office/library features a wood-clad tray ceiling.
Photography by Derek & Vee
A landmarked Gilded Age manor is a rare find on the market in the nation’s capital. But one address matching the profile just listed with ties to the founder of the National Press Club, one of the world’s leading professional organizations for journalists. Now listed for $10.5 million, the four-story mansion includes a host of modern amenities that complement its historic appeal. Daniel M. Heider of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty holds the listing.
Named the Owl’s Nest, the mansion was built in 1897 as a country house for journalist William L. Crounse within the Forest Hills community. He tapped Appleton P. Clark, Jr. to design the hilltop retreat, which DC Historic Sites credits as “one of the city’s best examples of the Shingle style.” The nearly two-acre property was reportedly bought by the Jewish Day School in 2001 with plans to tear it down. It was designated a historic landmark that same year, amid those efforts, and Washington developer Chris Donatelli was next in line to buy the pad for $2.69 million in 2007.
The converted office/library features a wood-clad tray ceiling.
Photography by Derek & Vee
The property had fallen into disrepair by that time. So, Donatelli hired local architect George Myers and Gibson Builders for a major renovation that expanded and modernized it before moving in a year later. It now spreads out across 10,780 square feet in two wings, one restored and one brand new, with eight bedrooms and eight bathrooms.
While its many special details, including a stone archway at the entrance, a central turret, and stained-glass panels, speak to the home’s past, Donatelli’s time at the residence gives it even more political cachet. The architect and his wife, Karen, often hosted high-profile events at the home in Forest Hills where “wealthy Washingtonians would weekend,” Heider tells Mansion Global. Their most notable guest was former President Barack Obama, who reportedly attended a dinner party in 2014. “It’s the perfect home for a diplomat, an ambassador, or global CEO,” he continues.
A light-filled bedroom sits at the top of a three-story stone turret.
Photography by Derek & Vee
Massive stone walls are exhibited along the home’s castle-like façade, plus asymmetrical massing that gives it a pleasantly uneven shape and weight, visually. Inside the grand foyer, a wood-paneled staircase sits across the way with a stained-glass window depicting an owl. The home’s name and this detail honor the land’s history of attracting owls as one of the highest points in the D.C. area. Standout spaces added onto the mansion include a chef’s kitchen with custom cabinetry and Wolf appliances, a converted library with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, and two covered porches.
RELATED: A New Report Shows Where Luxury Home Prices are Expected to Increase Around the Globe
The primary suite is situated on the second floor with a covered terrace and spa-like en suite featuring checkered marble flooring. The abode’s top level, meanwhile, provides access to the airy turret bedroom with mullioned windows. Back downstairs, a sun-soaked rear patio with a lap pool and alfresco dining space rounds out the Owl’s Nest in northwest D.C.
Click here for more photos of the sprawling Washington, D.C. mansion.
Photography by Derek & Vee
4 things to know about the weather:
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
Washington, D.C. (7News) — Rosselli is the newest restaurant to open in DC.
Bringing in classic Italian flavors, Chef Carlos explained how he hopes his food is a unique addition to the Italian food scene in the DMV.
Chef also demoed a signature dish with Brian and Megan.
BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT
You can learn more and book your table here.
Kanakaʻole, Zane ʻohana transform Hawaiian cultural practices into captivating visual arts | Maui Now
‘Unrelenting’: Statehouse reporters recap 2026 legislative session in Idaho Falls – East Idaho News
Weather service assessing damage across Iowa, Illinois and Missouri
Projecting the Indiana Fever’s 2026 Starting Lineup
5 people wounded in shooting near University of Iowa campus, including 3 students
Kansas Governor signs Caleb’s Law, targeting online sextortion of minors
Missing on this PF in the transfer portal could be a good thing for Kentucky
At least 8 children killed in shooting in Louisiana, US