Approaching Julia Child’s onetime home on Olive Road in Georgetown, it is effortless to visualize the chef herself welcoming you into the butter-yellow, 19th-century clapboard home. But when its present proprietor, Rory Veevers-Carter, opened the doorway one particular current afternoon, the illusion that she might be simmering a pot of beef bourguignon someplace inside of was promptly shattered. Currently, as Veevers-Carter nears the conclusion of a transformative renovation, the well-known house’s interior is astonishingly present day. A again wall is produced virtually solely of glass, and the metal body of a custom floating staircase nearly resembles a spine. In the basement, the proprietor has set up a Turkish steam tub clad wall to wall in pink marble. Youngster would never acknowledge the location (nevertheless she’d in all probability love that bath).
The overhaul has been in the functions because 2015, when Veevers-Carter bought the home for $935,000. (He declines to say how much he’s expending on the renovation, giving only that the volume would make “any self-respecting DC contractor blush.” He has documented the method on Instagram.) Veevers-Carter was intrigued that Julia and Paul Child owned the property from 1948 to 1961, he claims, and that she labored on Mastering the Art of French Cooking while living there. But generally he just wished a fixer-higher in a great site. “Fixer-upper” is an understatement: The house—long rented out to learners and other tenants—had so a lot rot that Veevers-Carter’s crew nervous it would collapse.
While he at first supposed to are living in the property, his options have changed due to personalized conditions. That means the well known address—which Julia referred to as her “little jewel”—could be on the marketplace as soon as this summer time. Veevers-Carter, who hasn’t decided whether or not he’ll offer or lease it out, insists he’s not way too unhappy to allow it go. “If you like houses, you really don’t get attached to them,” claims the computer software entrepreneur, who owns two other outdated residences: a put on Cape Cod from the 1700s and a person in Vermont from the 1800s.
Of system, the largest issue for Julia Baby followers is what is up with the kitchen. Veevers-Carter was not capable to discover any pictures of it from when she lived there, but throughout demolition he uncovered a wall of muted green paint, which matches the color of her Cambridge, Massachusetts, kitchen, now preserved at the Countrywide Museum of American Heritage. Certain it is a remnant of her favorite space, Veevers-Carter has left a patch uncovered he designs to secure it driving glass taken from just one of the house’s authentic windows.
Apart from that, the new kitchen will have the same au courant vibe as the relaxation of the home. Veevers-Carter thinks Julia would approve. “She constantly experienced the most recent gadgets,” he states. “I sense if she was redesigning a kitchen, it would be contemporary.”
Senior Editor
Marisa M. Kashino joined Washingtonian in 2009 as a team writer, and became a senior editor in 2014. She oversees the magazine’s actual estate and home design protection, and writes lengthy-kind feature tales. She was a 2020 Livingston Award finalist for her two-part investigation into a possible wrongful conviction stemming from a murder in rural Virginia.