Petworth

Petworth takes its name from the estate of John Tayloe III, likely named for the town of Petworth in West Sussex, England. According to the DC Historic Preservation Office, the Petworth subdivision was platted in 1888 on a 387-acre tract and was the city's first subdivision planned under the 1888 Subdivision Act, which required new suburbs to follow the street pattern of the L'Enfant Plan. A horse-drawn streetcar charter for Georgia Avenue the same year set the stage for building.

The first rows went up in the 1890s near Georgia Avenue, mixed in with detached and semidetached houses. The real rowhouse boom started between 1905 and 1910 and continued into the 1930s, producing the two-story, porch-fronted brick rows often called the Washington rowhouse, or the daylight rowhouse because they are wider than Victorian rows and have more windows. C. N. J. Dunigan Company built them by the hundreds.

Georgia Avenue and Upshur Street are the main commercial corridors. The Petworth Neighborhood Library, which opened in 1939 at Georgia Avenue, Kansas Avenue, and Upshur Street NW, sits at 4200 Kansas Avenue NW. Grant Circle was largely built out by the end of 1930, when St. Gabriel's Catholic Church was completed there, and President Lincoln's Cottage and Rock Creek Cemetery are close by.

On transit, the Georgia Av-Petworth Metro station is served by the Green and Yellow lines, and Georgia Avenue has a long history as a transit corridor going back to its early streetcar line.

Petworth buyers often use DC's Home Purchase Assistance Program (HPAP), run by the Department of Housing and Community Development, and DC Open Doors from the DC Housing Finance Agency, which works through participating lenders. Eligibility and terms change, so see our DC programs page for current details.

A practical note: Petworth includes sites on the DC Inventory of Historic Sites, such as Rock Creek Cemetery, and DC's Historic Preservation Review Board has looked at landmark nominations for individual rowhouses here. If you plan exterior work, check the specific address with the DC Historic Preservation Office first.