As high mortgage rates continued to shape the Washington real estate market, the upper echelon of homes sales hit new heights in 2023. A $13 million penthouse became the highest priced condo ever in the D.C. region and a D.C. property with links to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was scooped up for more than $12 million. And those weren’t even the top sale.
Washington, D.C
In case you’re wondering what $17 million will get you
The number of homes that sold for more than $1 million in the region declined from 2022 to 2023, according to ICE Mortgage Technology. But last year, luxury market listings went under contract faster — within two weeks for three of the top 10 listings, real estate leaders said.
“As you get closer into the city, even the higher priced homes are moving right now,” says Cara Pearlman, an executive vice president at Compass Realty. “There are people who weren’t transacting before because they weren’t sure what was going to happen with the economy. Now they realize that nothing’s changing substantially.”
Pearlman was the listing agent on the most expensive house sold in the D.C. area this year: an 11,000-square-foot Mediterranean villa, the residence for the Swedish ambassador for about 70 years.
She notes another trend among this year’s crop of highest transactions — embassy-related sales. “There are only so many people that need this scale of ultra-luxury homes,” Pearlman says.
Pearlman said she is seeing an uptick in the higher-end market. “It’s encouraging to see that they’re seeing that things have been the way they’ve been for a while, and they’re deciding to go ahead and move forward, purchasing their next residence or second residence,” she said. “It feels like maybe the wheels are getting unstuck.”
This isn’t everyone’s market but the rest of us can peruse this list of last year’s top sales, compiled with the help of Bright MLS, in ways as wistful, envious or spiteful as we please.
10
2860 Woodland Dr. NW, Washington, D.C.
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This D.C. mansion, built into a terraced hillside in 1927, was designed by architect George N. Ray, who crafted more than 50 homes in the area. Notable owners include a Treasury Department undersecretary, an ambassador to Switzerland and president of Washington National Bank, and Bill Frist, a former U.S. Senate majority leader. The stone manor, embellished with wisteria vines and adorned with five terraces, played host to such dinner guests as Elizabeth Taylor and Vincent Price. It was a filming location for the 1977 movie “The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover.”
List price: $9.75 million
Time on market: Three months
Listing agent: Robert Hryniewicki, Washington Fine Properties
9
8913 Holly Leaf Lane, Bethesda, Md.
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The only Maryland sale on the list belonged to former Washington Wizards star guard Bradley Beal, whose lavish mansion sold for almost a million under the asking price of $10 million after he was traded to the Phoenix Suns. The listing described an “elevated South Miami vibe,” with black ceiling accents and hand-laid Italian mosaic tile. The 2016 house has six bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, and an elevator to traverse its 13,482 square feet. It also has an NBA-built regulation half-court, an arcade room, a tennis court with stadium lighting and parking for 14 vehicles. It was purchased by Dean Seavers, a businessman who served as president of of National Grid USA, in November.
Sale price: $9.185 million
Time on market: Two months
Listing agent: Andres Serafini, RLAH @properties
8
4620 Cathedral Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.
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This six-bedroom, nine-bathroom house with a modern black-and-white facade was built in 2022 in a set of three adjacent houses. The lots, next to federally owned Battery Kemble Park, were prospected by developers for more than a decade before Bryce Arrowood, managing partner at Cliveden Group, figured out how to access the land: by buying a house at the end of Cathedral Avenue that bordered the lots, and building a private road. The transitional-style house has a floating staircase, wine cellar, exercise room, and ample outdoor space that includes a pool. The house was bought in January by TEWBDC, LLC, which has the same mailing address as ALS Finding a Cure, a service mark of the Leandro P. Rizzuto Foundation. The latter is a tax-exempt organization.
List price: $9.495 million
Sale price: $9.45 million
Time on market: Two and half months
Listing agent: Lee Arrowood, Compass Realty
7
3301 Fessenden St. NW, Washington, D.C.
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This Italian-villa-inspired estate with a limestone-domed foyer comes with a name of equal gravitas, dubbed by its builder Palazzo Della Felicita, or “Palace of Happiness.” With a twin grand staircase, library with wood walls and ceilings, movie theater, 5,000-bottle wine cellar, patio and garage for up to 11 cars, the 2019 Forest Hills neighborhood house was designed for entertaining. It should come as no shock, then, that it was bought by the Israeli embassy for Ambassador Michael Herzog in September – for about half a million under the original listing price.
List price: $9.95 million
Time on market: Under two weeks
Listing agent: Michael Rankin, TTR Sotheby’s International Realty
6
1113 Langley Lane, McLean, Va.
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We’re getting into the eight-digits now! The many adornments of this 16,000-square-foot Western European-inspired mansion come from sources as diverse as the Oregon Trail (300 tons of fieldstone) and a French castle (an artist-signed fireplace built in 1900). The property is designed to accommodate as many as 160 guests, and boasts a sunlit entertainment room, circular wine cellar, hearth room, arched hallways, massive walk-in closets, two-story library with a spiral staircase and an indoor basketball court. Outside, a stone veranda overlooks the property’s 1¼ acres, designed by landscape architect Charles Owens. The mansion was bought in January by the thus-unidentified Earthly Castle LLC.
List price: $13.5 million
Sale price: $10.8 million
Time on market: Four months
Listing agent: William Thomas, TTR Sotheby’s International Realty
5
2221 30th St. NW, Washington, D.C.
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This Beaux-Arts estate in Massachusetts Avenue Heights was built in 2008 as a showpiece of the late venture capitalist and major Republican donor Melvyn J. Estrin. The mansion hosted plenty of fundraisers for his candidates of choice, and for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Boasting 13,595 square feet and four stories, it has a heated motor court, several terraces, a heated swimming pool, reception foyer, library, wine room and parking for 14 vehicles. It will become a new official residence for the Irish ambassador, selling in December for more than $4,000,000 under the listing price.
List price: $16.5 million
Sale price: $12.25 million
Time on market: Three days
Listing agent: Charles Holzwarth Jr., Washington Fine Properties
4
601 Wharf St. SW #PH1, Washington, D.C.
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The most expensive new construction in 2023 — and priciest condo ever sold in the area — this record-breaking penthouse in the Wharf’s posh, futuristic Amaris was designed by the late Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly. His other projects include Manhattan’s “pencil tower” at 432 Park Avenue, Tokyo International Forum and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The penthouse, which overlooks the buzzy entertainment district and the Washington Channel, has four bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a large terrace and three parking spaces. It sold in April. According to the Wall Street Journal, the buyer was a West Coaster who wanted an East Coast dwelling for family; they also purchased two boat slips at the Wharf.
List price: $12.5 million
Sale price: $12.762 million
Time on market: None (sold the day before listing appeared)
Listing agent: Michelle Giannini, Hoffman Realty
3
1163 Chain Bridge Rd., McLean, Va.
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Located adjacent to former Kennedy family estate Hickory Hill in upper-crust Langley Farm, this 13,882-square-foot stone mansion has a handcrafted mahogany and glass front door, an antique limestone fireplace, coffered ceilings, custom chandeliers and a room labeled “morning bar.” Outside, the “edgeless” pool flows into a waterfall, fountains bubble and a built-in stone firepit comes with matching irremovable and hard-looking stone seating. The landscaped gardens encompass nearly two acres.
List price: $13.8 million
Sale price: $13.25 million
Time on market: Four months
Listing agent: Piper Yerks, Washington Fine Properties
2
3017, 3009, 3003 N St. NW, Washington, D.C.
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Speaking of the Kennedys, this combined estate includes a National Historic Landmark once owned by former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Other notable past tenants include a World War I-era secretary of war, a Soviet spy and Yolande Fox, a former Miss America and Washington society magnate. The property, with 13 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms, was remodeled into one compound by late real estate proprietor David Hudgens, who had lived at 3017 N St. NW since 1997 — but its history extends to the 1700s, when it was built by Georgetown mayor Thomas Beall. Combined, the houses have more than 16,000 square feet of living space and include original fireplaces, a three-car garage, several terraces and a salon with hand-painted frescoes. It sold in November to an LLC named HistoryHouse Properties for nearly $6 million above asking price.
List price: $9.25 million
Sale price: $15.1 million
Time on market: Eight months
Listing agent: John Taylor, TTR Sotheby’s International Realty
1
3900 Nebraska Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.
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The priciest “house” sold in the D.C. area last year has more in common with commercial sales than residential. Built in 1925 for a wealthy newspaper publisher, this sprawling Mediterranean villa in American University Park was home to Swedish ambassador Karin Olofsdotter before she relocated to a “Scandi-cool” Georgetown abode. This sale marks the first time since the 1950s that the 6.7-acre property was on the market. It seems that D.C. ultra-luxury buyers have less use for such estates now — according to Pearlman, none of the roughly 13 offers were end users. Though the manor house is protected from major changed by a D.C. historic landmark designation, developers plan to build a luxury community reminiscent of Phillips Park on the rest of the property, Pearlman said. It sold to the Banks Development Co. in February.
List price: $19.5 million
Sale price: $17.3 million
Time on market: Four months
Listing agent: Cara Pearlman, Compass Realty
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WASHINGTON (7News) — Tuesday was the last day the D.C. Council could vote to enact an expanded curfew in time for summer.
7News learned it never even made it on the agenda for a discussion and went to council members to find out why.
For the next two months, it’ll be up to the mayor to declare a curfew until the permanent version kicks in. There is already a city curfew. The curfew that has been up for debate for more than a year is the expanded version of the curfew. The expanded version allows the Metropolitan Police Department to create zones where teens 17 and under cannot gather in groups of nine or more.
RELATED | DC curfews pushed large groups into local neighborhoods, some residents say
Mayor Muriel Bowser currently has her own curfew order in place, which ends Saturday. The mayor can continue issuing an order. Councilmembers against the expanded curfew said that’s why it doesn’t need to come from the council.
In a video posted two weeks ago, D.C Council public safety chair Brooke Pinto said she wanted her councilmembers to vote to fill the gap today. 7News asked her why she never presented it to the council.
“Unfortunately, in working with my colleagues over the last several weeks, we did not have the votes,” said Pinto. “We have to have enough votes to pass the law and make sure that we didn’t have a gap.”
Bowser, in a letter to council Tuesday, said councilmembers Trayon White, Robert White, Zachary Parker, Brianne Nadeau and Janese Lewis-George are “blocking the will of the public and majority of council.”
7News spoke to three of the members she called out about the mayor’s pushback.
“I reject the rhetoric and the political games that are being played, and I’m wanting for us to get to the bottom of how do we stop the teen takeovers and the delinquent behavior we’ve been seeing,” Parker said.
“I stand by my belief that a curfew policy is a failed policy, kind of smoke and mirrors, and what we really needed is investments in our young people, so I’m pretty firm on that,” Nadeau said.
“We have to choose our tools and the time we use those tools. I’ve supported the curfew in the past, but I think with the current surge of more federal troops that have been impending, we’re putting our youth in even more danger by extending that work. I know the executive has put in an emergency executive order that will fill the gap. I hope that comes alongside extended hours, I’ve funded at DPR, extended weekends, and opening more safe spaces for youth here in the city. And that’s the solution that we do agree on,” Lewis-George said.
The mayor has not confirmed if she’ll issue another order, but it is on the table.
Whispers, mysteries still hang in air 50 years after Bolles’ murder
Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles died on June 13, 1976, 50 years ago. There are still mysteries surrounding his death from a car bombing.
A memorial designed to pay tribute to journalists who have died in pursuit of a story — including Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles, who had a bomb explode under his car 50 years ago — will soon have a home on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
The Fallen Journalists Memorial, set to open in June 2028, won’t include individual names of journalists. A rule says that unless Congress makes an exception, a memorial wall can only include a group whose last member died more more than a quarter century prior.
And the number of journalists who die in pursuit of truth continues to grow every year.
The foundation creating the memorial has featured journalists on its website. Included in the first round of those showcased is Bolles.
Bolles was a reporter with The Arizona Republic who investigated the mafia, land fraud and political corruption. He was killed in June 1976 by a bomb planted under his Datsun at a midtown Phoenix hotel, an incident that shocked the nation and shook the journalism community.
Barbara Cochran, president of the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation, said the aim was to remind people of the work done by journalists like Bolles.
“They go as eyewitnesses. They document,” she said. “They dig deep and come up with information that people don’t have time to do on their own.”
Bolles’ legacy was not just forged by his death, Cochran said, but the work his death inspired.
Scores of reporters from around the country descended on Phoenix to continue investigating political corruption as Bolles had.
That collective action sent a message.
“Even if you kill the journalist, you won’t kill the story,” Cochran said. “Don Bolles was really the symbol of that.”
The memorial will honor journalists who, like Bolles, were targeted for their reporting, Cochran said. It would also honor those who died in pursuit of a story.
That’s the story of at least five more Arizona journalists.
In 1985, Republic reporter Charles Thornton was killed in Afghanistan, which at the time was invaded by the Soviet Union. Thornton was a health reporter and took the trip to cover a clinic set up by Americans looking to save the lives of people injured in the war by bombs and chemical weapons.
Thornton knew the risks of traveling to a war zone. But said he thought it was worth it to bring the story of the injuries suffered by the Afghan rebels to Republic readers.
In 2007, two news helicopters collided while covering a police chase in midtown Phoenix. The helicopters, one from Channel 3, KTVK-TV, and one from Channel 15, KNXV-TV, each carried a cameraman and a pilot. All four men died when the helicopters crashed onto Steele Indian School Park.
Bolles will be the only Arizona reporter among the first to be honored as part of the new National Mall memorial project.
The physical memorial in Washington will be made up of glass rectangles.
On one end of the plaza, they will be laid in an abstract design. The glass rectangles could serve as benches on the plaza.
As visitors walk to the other end, the glass rectangles begin stacking. Visitors will then enter a circle formed by more glass rectangles.
On the ground in the center of the circle will be the words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Reporter writes ‘the book I wanted to read’ on slain journalist Don Bolles
Axios reporter Jeremy Duda discusses “Murder in the Fourth State,” a book on the murder of The Arizona Republic’s Don Bolles, who died after a car bombing in 1976.
Arizona effort to create a Don Bolles memorial stalls at state Capitol
The DC memorial was introduced in Congress in 2019. It passed both the House and Senate unanimously in 2020 and was signed into law in December 2020 by President Donald Trump.
In contrast, a push to create a memorial for Bolles on the grounds of the state Capitol was proposed at the Arizona Legislature each of the past few years. But every attempt has stalled.
The bill passed the Arizona House unanimously this year. It was bottled up in the state Senate, as has happened since it was first introduced in 2023.
The Bolles memorial bill was assigned to the Senate Government Committee, chaired by state Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek. He did not give the bill a hearing, just as he had declined to do in the previous two sessions.
Hoffman, who has done contract work for the conservative groups Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action, has had an antagonistic relationship with the mainstream press and The Republic.
Rep. Selina Bliss, R-Prescott, the sponsor of the measure, said she is not sure exactly why Hoffman hasn’t given the bill a hearing. She expected it would easily pass if it made it to the state Senate floor.
“I can’t get into the minds of others,” she said, “why they choose to hear or don’t hear a bill.”
Bliss said she recognized the passion that Bolles had for journalism.
“It’s like a line of duty death, if you will,” she said. “People are killed in action doing what they do.”
Bliss said she was a teenager in Prescott at the time of the Bolles bombing. She remembers the experience as searing.
“It shook everyone so dramatically,” she said.
Bliss said she might expand the bill next session to include all fallen Arizona journalists, in hopes of getting it out of the logjam in the Senate.
Tim Eigo, president of the Arizona chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, has testified at the Arizona Legislature in support of the bill to allow a Bolles memorial.
Eigo said it was unfortunate that the bill was caught up in the swirl of current political feelings about journalism.
“I think people can get confused about whether dogged coverage is also advocacy. It’s not,” he said. “Some people get confused by that. So, they hesitate to honor a remarkable journalist like Don Bolles because there are other journalists they don’t like.”
Commemorating reporters who were targeted specifically because of their work like Bolles sends a signal, Eigo said.
“When we are honoring their accomplishments and commitment,” he said, “we are also defeating those who feel they can commit crimes against the press with impunity. … We are speaking truth to that cynical power.”
Shooting that killed journalists in Maryland inspired push for memorial
The idea for the DC memorial came after the June 2018 mass shooting at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland. Five people were killed in the incident, four of them journalists.
The convicted gunman had filed a defamation suit against the newspaper after it reported on his legal troubles. He reportedly sent letters threatening to attack the newspaper’s journalists before he stormed the newsroom with a shotgun.
Retired U.S. Congressman David Dreier sat on the board of Tribune Publishing, the corporate owner of the sister newspapers, The Capital and the Maryland Gazette. Dreier, a Republican from California, worried that by 2019 the memory of the shooting was already fading.
He wanted a public memorial on the National Mall. The idea gained urgency, Cochran said, when the Newseum announced in 2019 that it was closing. That museum had an exhibition honoring slain journalists. Its centerpiece was the blown-out car from the 1976 Bolles bombing.
“There is nothing in Washington that talks about the sacrifices of journalists or that talks about the First Amendment, which is such a unique contribution to freedom and free expression for people everywhere,” Cochran said.
The location cited for it is a triangular plot of land about three blocks from the U.S. Capitol. The site, about a quarter-acre, was formed by the intersection of Independence Avenue and Maryland Avenue, which runs on a diagonal to the U.S. Capitol.
“The site has a clear view of the Capitol Dome,” Cochran said. “It’s a connection to journalism and a symbol of democracy. It reinforces the idea that journalism is a pilar of democracy.”
The memorial will not carry the names of any of the fallen journalists.
Cochran said a federal regulation governing memorials on the National Mall has a rule about those being honored in a group needing to have been deceased for more than 25 years.
“This is a memorial for which there would never be an end time,” she said.
Threats to press freedom are on the rise across the globe
The anniversary of Bolles’ death and the memorial underway come as journalists around the world face increased threats.
Reporters Without Borders, a global nonprofit advocating for independent journalism, has tracked press freedom around the world since 2002. The organization scores countries based on how free journalists are to report, evaluating the legal, political, economic and cultural constraints. It also looks at journalists’ safety working in the countries.
The organization’s 2026 World Press Freedom Index returned the lowest average score among all countries in 25 years.
The United States ranked as the 64th freest country in the world, dropping seven places from its ranking in 2025. The organization cited Trump’s continued attacks on journalists who cover him, as well as his administration’s pressure on networks and news outlets as part of the ranking.
Trump has made attacking the press and sowing distrust in traditional news media a hallmark of his agenda since his first run for higher office in 2015. He has threatened to ease libel laws to make it easier to sue news outlets.
Trump himself sued the CBS and ABC networks based on their journalists’ work. The networks settled despite legal experts saying the cases were weak.
U.S. presidents have long had an antogonistic relationship with the press.
George Washington, the first president of the United States, referred to journalists as “infamous scribblers.” Vice President Spiro Agnew called the press “nattering naybobs of negativism.” President Barack Obama used the Espionage Act to plug what he perceived were leaks from his administration to the press, according to the Cato Institute.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit news advocacy group, has tracked more than 2,500 anti-press incidents in the United States since 2017, with nearly 1,400 assaults making up the majority. The tracker records non-physically violent threats, too, such as subpoenas and legal interventions, or chilling statements.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has recorded 17 journalists and reporters killed in the United States since 1992.
In Arizona, 28 anti-press incidents were recorded since 2017, including arresting reporters and denying them access to government events.
The Arizona incidents over the past decade include an interview subject who pushed and shoved an Arizona Republic reporter before stealing her cell phone during the interview, the detention by Phoenix police of a Wall Street Journal reporter who was talking to customers outside a bank, and the detention of an Arizona Republic photographer who was covering protests outside the state Capitol in 2024.
Taylor Seely is a First Amendment Reporting Fellow at The Arizona Republic / azcentral.com. Do you have a story about the government infringing on your First Amendment rights? Reach her at tseely@arizonarepublic.com or by phone at 480-476-6116.
Reach Richard Ruelas at richard.ruelas@arizonarepublic.com or at 602-444-8473.
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