The residence · 749 Kenyon Street NW

A 1916 brick colonial,54 years in good hands.

Bedrooms: 2
Baths: 2.5
Built: 1916
Original footprint: 12.5′ × 28′
Square / Lot: 2892 / 0088
Neighborhood: Columbia Heights

The property

A personal home, not a staged product.

Before the front door, a green garden and mature tree canopy shade the porch — a place for a glass of wine and an easy word with neighbors. The freshly painted oak-and-glass door, set beneath its green-and-white transom, opens into a coastal-colonial calm. The house faces south, with sunlight throughout the day. Side windows, an uncommon detail in a rowhome, bring light from multiple directions across the hardwood floors and freshly painted walls, from the front parlor to the kitchen at the back.

South-facing sunlight fills the day; uncommon side windows bring light beyond the usual front and back of a rowhome. The renovated kitchen is built for people who truly cook and entertain: tile, butcher block, a farmhouse sink, open cabinetry, farmhouse lights, stainless-steel appliances and thoughtful storage. Copper cups hang from hooks on the blue open cabinetry, while the original pots and pans remain on the left-wall rail opposite the range. A new butcher-block prep and seating area sits beneath that rail. Beyond it, the bar cove holds a wine cooler, red-wine storage and a tiled mini bar, keeping drinks close to the conversation. French doors open to the tiled patio, outdoor cooking, the dining table and blue umbrella, with the garden, parking and garage continuing beyond. A main-floor powder room keeps the entire first floor easy for guests.

The grand wood stair leads to a study with built-in bookcases and room to serve as another bedroom, with a full bath across the hall. The primary suite brings together its renovated bath, generous closet space and the stacked laundry newly moved upstairs. Hardwood continues throughout. A brand-new Lennox furnace and air-conditioning system holds the house steady through a Washington August and a January cold snap alike, carried by a 10-year parts, 5-year labor warranty plus an active service contract — all conveying. Beautifully renovated and move-in ready, this is a home composed equally for entertaining and for the quiet after everyone leaves.

The rear garden holds full sun until sunset: room to grow, to gather, and to carry dinner outdoors while the light lasts. The oven is warming by six, the bocce court by seven. By ten, someone is saying they should go, and nobody does.

Covered front porch of 749 Kenyon Street NW with white painted brick and wood front door

Deep teal library with illuminated trophies and a desk beside the window

The library & study

A working room,with its history overhead.

Floor-to-ceiling teal bookcases frame a desk at the garden window. Above, trophies and keepsakes sit beneath warm backlighting; below, hardwood runs through to the hall.

Stained wood rail with lit spice shelf and a model sailboat above slate-toned tile and hanging iron hooks and pans

The kitchen · millwork & tile

Made by hand,made to be used.

A farmhouse colonial kitchen is measured in the things you can reach: the pan on its hook, the jar on the rail, the wood worn smooth where the bread gets cut.

The wood rail

A deep, warm-stained shelf runs the length of the wall, lit softly from behind so the spices glow at night.

The spice shelf

Jars, oils and the cookbook that gets used, all within reach of the range and never behind a door.

Iron hooks & hanging pans

Black iron S-hooks beneath the rail carry pans, whisks and brushes, the way a working farmhouse kitchen always has.

Slate-toned tile

Dark stone-look tile set in a running bond, carried up the wall behind the cooking line.

Butcher block & open cabinetry

Wood counters for real prep and open storage that keeps the everyday things out where they belong.

Wine, steps away

The tiled bar cove and its wine storage sit between the kitchen and the French doors to the patio.

Designed and renovated bySchumacher & BeckDesign + Build Division

Drawn for evenings, not for photographs.

The house was designed and renovated by the Design + Build division of Schumacher & Beck — the same hands that drew and built every room you see. Rooms were sized around how a night actually unfolds: where people set a glass down, where the cook stands, how far it is from the corkscrew to the terrace. Materials were chosen to age rather than to photograph — butcher block that takes a knife mark, tile carried all the way to the ceiling, original casings kept and repaired instead of replaced. Outside was treated as architecture, not an afterthought: patterned tile, outdoor cooking and dining, a court beyond the terrace, a wall of roses, all composed with the same care as the rooms indoors.

The renovation

What was kept. What was quietly made new.

Kept

Millwork & plaster

The original casings, plinth blocks and picture rail are still here, kept in place through the renovation rather than torn out for something newer.

New

Heating & cooling

A brand-new furnace with forced-air air conditioning — efficient and fast in both directions, which is no small thing in this climate.

Renovated

Kitchen

Coastal-colonial farmhouse: butcher block counters, a farmhouse sink, stainless steel appliances, painted cabinetry and open shelving, with the garden doors at the end of the run.

Renovated

Baths

Clean, elegant and fully renovated, finished in the language of the house rather than against it.

New

Laundry

A new stackable washer and dryer, moved upstairs into the primary suite where the clothes actually are.

Grounds

The yard

Patterned patio beneath a mature tree canopy, outdoor cooking, a dining table with blue umbrella, string lights, bocce court beyond the photographed terrace, rose garden, storage, and a garage with parking behind.

Detail by detail

Press a number on any photographto read what it does for the room.

The kitchen at 749 Kenyon Street NW — butcher-block prep, copper cookware on the left wall, copper cups on blue open cabinetry, farmhouse sink and range — The kitchen, looking through to the French doors

The rear garden and patterned patio at 749 Kenyon Street NW — The garden, from the rear doors

The front door of 749 Kenyon Street NW — oak and glass beneath a transom — The front door and transom

See the before and after See the floor plan

The public record

As filed with the District.

Beds / baths: 2 / 2.5
Recorded neighborhood: Park View
Year built: 1916
Square / Lot: 2892 / 0088

Record data is reproduced as published by the District and lags the current condition of the house. Buyers should verify square footage and permits with DC OTR and DOB.

Sale & tax history

Every deed and tax bill on this house is a matter of public record. It is reproduced here as filed, without commentary, so the history is in front of you rather than behind a login.

Recorded transfers

$667,500
Recorded transfer to the current owners
22 January 2020
$470,000
Recorded transfer
17 April 2013
$250,000
Recorded transfer
14 December 2012

Earlier transfers appear in the record without a published amount, as is common for family and estate conveyances.

Property taxes billed

2024: $5,784
2023: $5,788
2022: $5,461
2021: $5,384
2020: $5,264
2019: $4,808
2018: $4,382
2017: $3,991

Lot size · 1,781 sq ft (0.04 acre)

Living area · 1,052 sq ft as carried on the tax roll

Source: District of Columbia recorder of deeds and tax roll, via public record aggregators. Figures lag the current condition of the house, predate this owner's renovation, and are not an assessment of present value. The asking price is not published; it is shared privately, in writing, at or before a showing.

Provenance

Drawn from District records.

District property records, the landmark file across the street, and the tax roll.

1881
Columbia Heights is laid out
The Columbia Heights subdivision was recorded across the former Stone Farm. Kenyon was one of the few original street names to survive the District's 1905 renaming of the surrounding grid.
Library of Congress plat; District street records
1916
749 enters the record
The District tax roll records 1916 as the year built for 749 Kenyon Street NW, a brick house on Square 2892, Lot 88. An original permit or deed naming its builder has not yet been located.
District tax record, via public property record
1898 / 1927
The Bruce School, across the street
Bruce School opened at 770 Kenyon Street in 1898, designed by William M. Poindexter. A 1927 annex by municipal architect Albert L. Harris enlarged a school created for Black children during segregation.
Bruce School National Register nomination
2014–15
Landmarked
Bruce School was designated a District landmark in 2014 and entered on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015, preserving an unusually rich record of the building opposite 749.
DC Office of Planning; National Register
Today
Owned and cared for
At 110 years, the house remains a single-family home with its own ground, gate and garden. Its recent renovation brought new systems while retaining the warmth and scale of the old rooms.
District record; present-day observation

Property, landmark, and tax figures are drawn from District records, the HPRB staff report for Case 13-21, and the DC Office of Tax & Revenue. No notable resident is documented at this address. All figures are approximate and should be independently verified.

Some rooms only read in person.

Weekday evenings and Saturday mornings, by appointment — buyers and cooperating agents alike. Thirty minutes, one party at a time.

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