First, I stumbled across this ad for 3703 Porter Street N.W., with the tantalizing blind item: “custom built for a prominent Washingtonian.” As agent Hans Wydler describes it, it’s a pretty special pad with a passive solar heating system and two floor-to-ceiling fireplaces. The 4,300 square feet include four bedrooms, high vaulted ceilings with exposed wooden beams, and a twisting staircase made out of a single piece of wood.
So who is this prominent Washingtonian? None other than Victor Reuther, one of the three Reuther brothers to lead the United Auto Workers at the peak of their strength, who lost an eye in a 1949 assassination attempt. As the leader of the UAW international efforts, he protested the Vietnam War, crusaded against the Shah of Iran, and then criticized his own union in the 1980s for its closeness to corporations. Reuther had the house custom built in 1982, and much of the interior detailing bears the signatures of the artists and craftsmen who made it. He died in 2004. The house is now on the market for the oddly precise price of $1,737,757.
For our second notable Cleveland Parker: Where does a grizzled Middle East correspondent and former Beirut bureau chief for the New York Times, who is still datelining from Damascus, decide to settle? Why, a pretty blue three-bedroom on 39th Street NW, which Robert F. Worth bought for $915,000 in late July. Should be nice to come home to.
Sale Watch: All the Cool Kids Live in Cleveland Park was originally published by Washington City Paper on Sep 17, 2010
