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Brightwood If you have questions about the following data or want more information, contact us at 202-965-3715. If you would like to be included in periodic e-mail updates on this or other neighborhoods, send your name and e-mail address to info@hananhomes.com. As of September 30, 2008, 47 single-family homes were for sale in Brightwood with 10 homes under contract. In the third quarter of 2008, 20 homes sold. In the first half of 2008, 33 single-family homes sold in Brightwood. In 2007, there were 84 sales, while 123 homes sold in 2006. The average sale price in the first half of 2008 was $422,649. This compares to $454,604 and $469,296 in 2007 and 2006, respectively. The average list price was $429,708 in the first half of 2008, $464,092 in 2007, and $474,093 in 2006. Listed below are the sales by price range.
Brightwood has a combination of the best of the old and the best of the new when it comes to architecture. Harry Wardman, probably the most well-known Washington residential architect of the past, built several homes in Brightwood before the turn of the century. Between 1920 and 1938 he constructed another 500 in Brightwood. The current styles of homes combine the predominant Colonials with Tudors, contemporaries, bungalows, and split levels. The majority of homes are detached or semi-detached single-family homes followed by low-rise apartments and townhouses. Many of the homes are being renovated by new owners, while long-time residents have begun to upgrade and make additions. Modern lofts have recently entered the scene. With Rock Creek as its western neighbor, residents can take advantage of all that the park offers including the Rock Creek Golf Course sitting on its border. Emery Mansion and Fort Stevens still remain in Brightwood, and for over 140 years Fort Stevens Day is celebrated in July with Civil War reenactments and family activities. The Battleground National Cemetery, one of the nation's smallest national cemeteries, commemorates the soldiers who died defending Fort Stevens. Convenience is a buzz word for Brightwood. Piney Branch Road makes Takoma Park, Maryland, and Silver Spring minutes from Brightwood, or go northeast on New Hampshire Avenue to the Beltway, or take 16th Street or Georgia Avenue to downtown. Brightwood is just south of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and not far from the Takoma Metro station. It is the home of Coolidge Senior High School, Whittier Elementary, the Nativity Catholic Academy, the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation's Capital, and Paul Junior High charter school. A commercial district on Georgia Avenue serves the neighborhood with banks, a day spa, restaurants including the popular Colorado Kitchen, and a Safeway with an in-store Starbucks. The new Takoma Community Center has an Olympic-sized swimming pool, basketball court, and football, baseball, lighted softball and soccer fields, and tennis courts. It also has services and programs for all ages in the neighborhood. A community garden has been in place for over 10 years near Fort Stevens. Over the last few years Brightwood has seen an influx of young professionals attracted to the detached homes with sizeable yards, the feeling of an established neighborhood, and new condominiums. James White in 1772 built a log cabin on his 536 acres in today's Brightwood. His family was one of the area's few inhabitants. In 1790 the area was added to the city, and in 1810 Congress granted a charter for a system of turnpikes. The Seventh Street Turnpike was completed in 1822, and tollgates were constructed, one of which was located in Brightwood. From the 1820s freed slaves settled in Brightwood in a community called Vinegar Hill. By the mid 1850s there were just over 30 property owners from Rock Creek Church Road to the District Line along the turnpike. Only a few had holdings of more than 100 acres. Four of the five black owners were women. Thomas Carbery with his working farm called Norway served as city mayor from 1822 until 1823 and was also a city council member. Two other landowners, William Cammack and John Saul, used their farms and greenhouses to support their downtown businesses. Three neighborhood clusters developed along the turnpike in Brightwood -- Oak Grove to the District line with its post office and blacksmith shop, Crystal Spring Race Track with accompanying hotel and tavern, and the tollgate with four homes, a hotel, a Methodist Episcopal Church, and Vinegar Hill. In 1861 the neighborhood received the name Brighton after the local post office. Because a post office in Maryland was also called Brighton and mail was misrouted, the name was changed to Brightwood (see history of Sixteenth Street Heights). The neighborhood has particular historic significance because of a military fort, Fort Massachusetts, that was built during the Civil War on land belonging to a black dairywoman. Military Road was built to connect this and other forts in the western section of town. The fort, renamed Fort Stevens to honor Brigadier General Issac Stevens who died in a victory in Chantilly, Virginia, was the setting of the only Confederate attack on Washington. Abraham Lincoln watched the battle from the fort, making him the only sitting president to come under enemy fire during a battle. To avoid the expensive turnpike toll, the neighborhood residents extended Piney Branch Road. The city government eventually acquired the turnpike and made it a free highway. Alexander "Boss" Shepherd bought a portion of the original Carbery estate and built a home valued at around $15,000 (see history of Shepherd Park). Matthew Gault Emery, city mayor between 1870-71 built the second most valuable country house. More than 20 years after the Civil War, there were still less than 150 households in Brightwood, almost two-thirds white. In 1893, when Congress extended the street plan of old Washington, the older streets and roads were straightened and widened. (Several of the old roads remain including Rock Creek Ford Road, 12th Street, and Shepherd Alley.) As heirs to farms abandoned agricultural life, more subdivisions arose. By 1910 there were three times as many homes as thirty years earlier. Louis Shoemaker, a real estate agent whose family sold 350 acres for Rock Creek Park, pushed for the continued development of the region and was instrumental in changing the name of Brightwood Avenue (or Seventh Street Extended) to Georgia Avenue. Other developers included the renowned Harry Wardman. Low-rise apartments began to appear in the 1920s, and additional apartment buildings and townhouses replaced single-family dwellings in the 1930s and 1940s. The upper northeast corner of Brightwood was part of the land bought by Benjamin Franklin Gilbert to create Takoma Park (see history of Takoma Park).
Brightwood
Community Association 202-829-2121
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