Often at this price tier the normal approach is to ask for an ambitious price to start, then expect to entertain offers below listing.

It’s sort of the reverse of what a good pricing strategy looks like on a normal home priced in the $1 - 2 million range in this area, where you want to list at just slightly below market to generate interest and let people bid it upwards.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well the buyer bought it for $4.5 million in 2022 before renovating it so $11 million might be right. For very expensive properties, it’s really a guessing game as to what the right price is. So I can’t blame them for starting out at $11 million.

Ummm are you the listing agent? .5 Milllion does not warrant 11 million FOUR years later for a reno.

+1
They slightly overpaid in '22 (should have been $4 tops) and then basically deconstructed it. Where they did "renovate" those are nothing more than the cheapest big box finishes. No way should this be out of the $4s.

No clue whether they’ll get their asking price, but those are not cheap finishes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well the buyer bought it for $4.5 million in 2022 before renovating it so $11 million might be right. For very expensive properties, it’s really a guessing game as to what the right price is. So I can’t blame them for starting out at $11 million.

Ummm are you the listing agent? .5 Milllion does not warrant 11 million FOUR years later for a reno.

+1
They slightly overpaid in '22 (should have been $4 tops) and then basically deconstructed it. Where they did "renovate" those are nothing more than the cheapest big box finishes. No way should this be out of the $4s.

I love the kitchen, if I was building a new house from scratch, that would be the kitchen. Especially if I was living somewhere in California.

But I cannot get over the weird mismatch of styles everywhere else in the house. The fake rustic exposed wood out of odds with the integrity of the original architecture. The fake "modern adobe" treatment of parts of the interior that is also out of odds with the exterior. Or that this was built as a nice normal UMC house and has been renovated into something wildly more expensive. The overall impression is one of disjointed, very different rooms leading to very different rooms, no matter how high quality and expensive the renovations were. The feeling is schizophrenic.

I'd have just demolished the house outright and built something much more coherent. I like the original house architecture and I do love a lot of the new interior styles, but the combination of everything just isn't working well. Which is a shame.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh, I was not expecting to like it from the outside but the inside is gorgeous.

Sure, but $11 million gorgeous

Am I in the minority here - the inside is looks so old fashioned and basic to me...

Anonymous wrote:Oh, I was not expecting to like it from the outside but the inside is gorgeous.

Sure, but $11 million gorgeous

Oh, I was not expecting to like it from the outside but the inside is gorgeous.

I swooned when I saw that the lot was a full 1/3 acre--that's so, so rare in DC proper.

It's a beautifully renovated historic home in Cleveland Park on a double lot with a pool. That is a lot of money for a home of that size, but that doesn't make it the wrong price. This is a very rare opportunity.

I read this story about it in the Washington Business Journal. I was intrigued because I used to live in Cleveland Park. It looks like this couple bought it for $4.5 million, and then spent over $5 million in renovations.

Cleveland Park home with sweeping National Cathedral views lists for record $10.995M
By Michael Neibauer – Managing Editor, Washington Business Journal
Jun 4, 2026
Updated Jun 4, 2026 10:43am EDT

Peter Hennessy and Abigail Leonard list their Cleveland Park home for $10.995 million.

The couple gutted and renovated the 110-year-old property after buying it for $4.5 million in early 2022.
Hennessy and Leonard are relocating to San Francisco to support his new startup venture, Enso Systems Inc.
Peter Hennessy and Abigail Leonard renovated their Cleveland Park home as if it would be in their family for generations.

It’s common to find residences on these blocks of upper Northwest that turn over once every 50 years. That was the case with 3519 Lowell St. NW, a 110-year-old American Foursquare for which Hennessy and Leonard paid $4.5 million in early 2022, then proceeded to gut renovate with a design inspired by their years living in Japan and San Francisco.

But life comes at you fast. Hennessy, a veteran investor and entrepreneur in the energy sector, launched his newest venture, Enso Systems Inc., last year. He and Leonard, a journalist and author of “Four Mothers: An Intimate Journey through the First Year of Parenthood in Four Countries,” are moving back to San Francisco to feed off the startup ecosystem there.

“We had planned to be here forever,” Leonard told me. “We are really sad to leave it. For Peter’s job it makes more sense to be out there.”

Their 7,400-square-foot home, with eight bedrooms, seven full-baths and three half-baths, hits the market Thursday with an asking price of $10.995 million, which broker Daniel Heider of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty notes is the most expensive listing in Cleveland Park history.

Situated on an elevated lot with sweeping views of Washington National Cathedral a block away, the residence retains that traditional 1916 appearance from the outside while delivering a tranquil, minimalist enclave on the inside and a deep connection to nature out back, between its curated garden, private meadow and large screened porch.

"It's like a classic Foursquare and an Aman hotel gave birth," Heider said.

How the couple got from $4.5 million to a nearly $11 million ask requires some background. In 2021 amid the ongoing Covid pandemic, homes in these leafy parts of the District were in heavy demand. Cash only. No contingencies. And available homes on Lowell Street were exceedingly rare.

So when they got word 3519 Lowell was available, Hennessy and Leonard, parents of three, jumped on it. It checked all their boxes: a rare double lot, efficient and square layout, a great location near D.C.’s top public and private schools — even a backyard pool.

"We can walk to a subway and we have a pool — an amazing combination," Hennessy said.

That’s not to say the home didn’t require attention. The kitchen hadn’t been renovated in 30 years. There was literally no foundation, which they discovered when they started digging up the basement. There was no garage.

“It was a project that merited being done right and so we just went all in,” Hennessy said.

He put the price tag of the renovations, which he described as "like open heart surgery while you're flying an airplane," at 100% of the home’s cost. Working with D.C.’s Colleen Healey Architecture and McLean’s Lynley Ogilvie Landscape Design, the couple found balance in their respective tastes to create what essentially became “a new house inside the existing house,” Hennessy said.

“I really love color and he loves shape and form,” Leonard said. “Our visions, we were able to put it together.”

They moved in in August 2023. Today, the completed project features six ensuite bedrooms and two separate suites with full baths and kitchenettes — one in the basement and one over the garage — two offices, refinished original three-story staircase, two washer and dryer locations, and a fully equipped lower-level gym with nine-foot ceilings. A steel-framed rear addition clad in Accoya siding houses the kitchen (with heated floors) and dining space, while the full-height porch includes retractable screens and built-in heaters.

Given the rarity of the offering on this block of Lowell and the new construction, Hennessy said there are no virtually no comps for a listing like this.

“You just feel like you’re in nature even though you’re in the middle of the city," he said. "It’s its own little world.”

3519 Lowell St. NW in Cleveland Park is on the market for $10.995 million. It is the most expensive listing in the neighborhood's history, according to broker Daniel Heider of TTR Sotheby's.


https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2026/06/04/cleveland-park-lowell-street-heider-ttr-cathedral.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well the buyer bought it for $4.5 million in 2022 before renovating it so $11 million might be right. For very expensive properties, it’s really a guessing game as to what the right price is. So I can’t blame them for starting out at $11 million.

Ummm are you the listing agent? .5 Milllion does not warrant 11 million FOUR years later for a reno.

Am I Daniel heider? No I can only wish because that dude gets all the insanely expensive listings in this area and so I am sure he is making bank. My hunch is that he knows a little more about pricing than you do.

Anonymous wrote:Well the buyer bought it for $4.5 million in 2022 before renovating it so $11 million might be right. For very expensive properties, it’s really a guessing game as to what the right price is. So I can’t blame them for starting out at $11 million.

Ummm are you the listing agent? .5 Milllion does not warrant 11 million FOUR years later for a reno.

Some fugly finishes for that price point. Who was the architect?

Well the buyer bought it for $4.5 million in 2022 before renovating it so $11 million might be right. For very expensive properties, it’s really a guessing game as to what the right price is. So I can’t blame them for starting out at $11 million.

In what world is this property on the market for 11 million...? I get the neighborhood is good but this property is giving Brady Bunch and I can not fathom the delusion it takes to price this at 11

https://www.redfin.com/DC/Washington/3519-Lowell-St-NW-20016/home/10261824