A beautiful day in the neighborhood: LeDroit Park to hold its first house and garden tour on Sunday

Here in Washington, history is always just around the corner. And every neighborhood has a story to tell.

This Sunday, LeDroit Park will open its doors and heart to visitors at its first-ever house and garden tour. Proceeds from ticket sales will underwrite LeDroit Park Civic Association activities, including beautification projects, seasonal events, the Common Good City Farm and other community initiatives.

“LeDroit Park is a one-of-a-kind neighborhood,” explained Ethan Arnheim, president of the LeDroit Park Civic Association and co-chair of the house tour. “We look forward to sharing LeDroit Park with visitors and supporting neighborhood priorities at the same time.”

Indeed, celebrating the neighborhood’s diversity — its people, its architecture and its design — is the point of the tour. Founded as an all-white “suburb” in 1873, LeDroit Park had become a focal point of African-American intellectual and cultural life by the 1890s, welcoming artists, judges, politicians and professors. Now its quiet residential streets, dotted with historic row houses, Victorians and contemporary homes, provide an eastern anchor to the U Street Corridor and the Shaw neighborhood, which are themselves attracting new life and vitality to the area.

Two of the most prominent homes on Sunday’s tour were designed by James McGill, the noted 19th-century architect, who planned each house with an original design.

This visitor took a different route and previewed an Italianate Victorian at 330 T St. NW. Built in 1880, the brick and wood-trimmed home once belonged to Fountain Peyton, whose own remarkable history is emblematic of the neighborhood. According to the Stafford County Historical Society, Peyton was born into slavery, ultimately graduated third in his law school class at Howard University and become a successful criminal defense attorney and Shakespeare scholar.

His house is equally impressive and is being lovingly restored room-by-room by its current owner, Aaron Rinaca, down to the last nail and floor tile. A brick walk and original marble stairs lead up to a wide porch, where a vintage pull doorbell sits to the side of the massive wood double-entry door.

Inside, the vestibule is laid with hand-fired marble tile with a Greek key design that dates from the 1880s. Every doorway in the home features the traditional Victorian rosette and fluted column surround, and every room has a fireplace — once coal-powered, now wood-burning.

The owner has preserved the original plaster walls, molding and medallions (inspired by McGill) as well as the pine flooring and brass-track pocket doors.

Rinaca bought the home from an investor who was going to turn the property into condominiums, and he has instead invested 15 years of renovation experience into this labor of love — for the house and the neighborhood.

Along with the house tour, visitors can explore Cultural Tourism DC’s Worthy Ambition: LeDroit Park/Bloomingdale Heritage Trail, which features a collection of signs throughout the neighborhood highlighting its former residents. A booklet for Sunday’s event will include a map of the featured homes for self-paced tours plus highlights of each home’s historical aspects and architectural significance.

The LeDroit Park House and Garden Tour will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 28. Tickets cost $35 in advance, or $40 on the day of the tour. For more information, visit the tour’s website.