Affectionately called by residents “a small town in the city,” Cleveland Park is where everybody knows your name while foodies wanting fine dining, wine and classic entertainment venture up from downtown Washington, DC, eight minutes by Metro subway, to fit themselves at a table.
Named for President Grover Cleveland who remodeled a stone farmhouse into a Queen Anne style summer estate known as Oak View in 1886, Cleveland Park feels like it could be a neighborhood anywhere in the States with bucolic lawns, Victorians with flower pots on the porch and a main street, in this case, Connecticut Ave., NW.
Bike the quiet, winding side streets and stand up on your pedals slightly for rolling hills that still feel like a small New England town at the turn of the 20th Century. Much of the community was laid out by the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted. Soon after Grover Cleveland left, the neighborhood developed into a “streetcar suburb” with an eclectic mix of designs, including by noted architect Waddy Wood. Stride home from work or downtown plays, concerts or museum exhibits, from the Cleveland Park Metro stop, and you’ll see many Queen Anne Shingle style homes. Stroll your baby in the stroller and take time to take in the Georgian Revival, Mission Revival and later designs, such as Prairie Style and Tudor. You’ll marvel, too, at late 20th Century designs, such as by Winthrop Faulkner and I. M. Pei, known for clean lines and airiness. Cleveland Park still resembles its past, with charm and softness, when it was known as the “Queen of Washington suburbs.” The Cleveland Park condominium for sale that you buy will likely be a mid-rise, eloquently coordinating its brick with nearby Rock Creek Park’s soaring oaks. Classic, perhaps with a remodeled interior and likely the latest appliances, you’ll linger in the lobby to socialize with your neighbors, many prominent citizens. Lease a Cleveland Park condo for rent and you might do business in that lobby with local journalists, politicos, lobbyists and association executives. Make a Cleveland Park condo for vacation rental your elegant get-away where you can light up for a night on the town down the street or kick off your shoes and grill on a balcony with wrought-iron hangers holding a pot of petunias. That home away from home could be your office, too. Authors and freelance writers are just as likely to be conducting interviews downtown at the best tables over a DC power lunch or research at the Library of Congress as to be meeting at a local coffee shop or stolen away over a computer while a gas fireplace warms their toes. Whether resident or tourist, hop the Metro down to the next stop for a day at the National Zoo. Like Woodley Park residents, if you keep your window open early in the morning, you just might hear the monkeys playing on high wires. At nightfall, venture over to Adams Morgan for international fare and music or back to your neighborhood for a band or movie at the Art Deco Uptown Theater. Since it’s opening in 1936, the renovated theater has premiered many Hollywood films and is still considered one of the best screens in the city. Perhaps you’ll see a movie star, but, likely, he or she won’t be going home to the coveted Cleveland Park condo for rent you lease. Though he or she might want to. |
