Kalorama Heights

Quick Answer

Kalorama Heights, also called Sheridan-Kalorama, sits between Rock Creek Park and Connecticut Avenue in Northwest DC. Its row houses are brick and large, and three in four went up between 1901 and 1939. Embassies and ambassadors' residences hold many of the bigger houses. Few row houses sell in a year, so each sale carries weight.

How We Calculate $/sqft

$/sqft is calculated on above-grade finished square footage, the standard used by DC appraisers, MLS systems, and most market participants. Properties with finished below-grade space (English basements, rental units) carry that square footage as additive value, but appraisers typically apply a discount of 50 to 75 cents on the dollar relative to above-grade space. Blending the two into a single $/sqft figure would make a home with a finished basement look cheaper than it is and obscure the real comparison. When a property has significant finished below-grade square footage, both metrics are presented in context so you understand the full picture before the appraiser does.

About 25 row houses sold here in the last 12 months. With a sample that thin, the median moves with whichever houses happened to sell.

For comparison, the Georgetown median is $1.9M and the Dupont Circle median is $1.9M.

The neighborhood is built out and sits inside a historic district, so new row houses are not being added.

Kalorama Heights row houses are big, and the sales to price them against are few.

DC lists about 220 row houses in Kalorama Heights. About 205 are single-family houses, and the figures here are for them; the other 16 are recorded as converted to two units. Three in four went up between 1901 and 1939. Nearly all are brick. More than nine in ten rise three stories or more. The typical house has about 4,600 square feet in total, on a lot of about 2,400 square feet. About three in four have a basement, and most of those are finished. More than four in five have four bedrooms or more.

About a hundred sold in ten years. At this size, one extra floor or a finished lower level separates two houses on the same block. The median of $2.6M describes the neighborhood, not your house.

Here is what I do with that. I compare a house with Kalorama Heights sales of the same size over several years first. Then I widen to Dupont Circle and Kalorama Triangle houses of the same age and floor count. I ask the seller in writing which rooms count as bedrooms, and what work was done below grade and when.

When the sales are few, the measurements carry the price.

From the Record

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  Speculative row house building began in the 1890s, after Connecticut Avenue was extended north of Florida Avenue and streetcar lines followed.

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  The poet Joel Barlow named the estate here Kalorama, Greek for fine view, in the early 1800s. The house burned in 1865, and Mitchell Park now holds its site.

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  During the Great Depression, owners sold many of the large houses to foreign governments. By 1993, almost 200 buildings in the neighborhood served as diplomatic offices or residences.

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  The Sheridan-Kalorama Historic District was listed on the National Register and the DC Inventory in 1989. It covers about 190 acres and more than 600 contributing buildings.