The annual Capitol Hill House & Garden Tour will be held on Mother’s Day weekend, May 9-10. After focusing on the northeast side of the Hill last year, this year we are highlighting the southeast side, with its lovely parks and even older homes.
The 2026 tour will include eight homes, three semi-public buildings and a newly installed native plant garden. Some homes have been part of the tour before but now have had fresh and unique updates. Tickets are available through Eventbrite.
Refreshments from local DC vendors will be offered in the lobby of 507 8th Street SE on Barracks Row, which will also operate as tour headquarters. “The 507,” as it is known, serves as an event venue and also the offices of Taoti Creative. The building itself has been many things over the years — some more reputable than others, which we have lots of information about — and we are so pleased to be able to introduce this space to those who have not seen its new iteration.
Homes on the tour feature both historic and more modern layouts and interiors. A few of the homes are on lightly used streets. Some are homes you may have always wondered about due unusual exterior shapes or paint colors. We have standalones, corner lots, clapboards, and former boarding houses. We have an infamous alley, an infamous business and one with some curious collections.
We also are featuring stately and well-behaved stops, such as the Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church and the Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital, both of which have graciously offered their locations as rest stops and will also offer tours of their buildings. The church is a beautiful example of Gothic architecture with impressive stained glass windows, and the Hill Center has made a few changes to its outdoor garden.
The tour, as always, is pedestrian-friendly. This year’s map will take you through some of the beautiful parks south of Pennsylvania Avenue, and CHRS will provide information about them in the tour catalog.
Tickets are on sale via Eventbrite on April 1. CHRS members will receive a discount code to purchase tickets for $30 each. The regular advance non-member price is $40, and the price increases to $50 on the weekend of the tour. Interested in volunteering as a docent? No experience is necessary and training will be provided. All docents who sign up for a minimum of a two-hour shift will be given a free ticket to visit the other tour stops. Click here or contact the CHRS House Tour Committee at caphillhousetour@gmail.com for more information.
The snow is gone. The Muse has descended and actually found a parking space. So, for April, which is National Poetry Month, she invites local Baudelaires and Emily Dickinsons to submit brief poems to CHRS celebrating our lives and houses on Capitol Hill.
The Muse, as she will, has guidelines:
1. The joys and foibles of Capitol Hill life must be your theme
2. Be spring-oriented — she no longer wishes to contemplate winter
3. Write a minimum of three lines (haiku) to a maximum of 14 lines (sonnet)
4. Submit your poem by Wednesday, March 18, at midnight (à la Poe) to caphrs420@gmail.com with “Poem” or “Poetry Submission” in the subject line
5. Choose any format, free verse to rigid meter, blank verse to rhyme. But if you label your poem a haiku, it must be a haiku; if a limerick, a limerick, etc.
6. The Muse will award a special prize (TBD) for wittiest use of the word “mortar”
Each year, CHRS asks for your best shots of Capitol Hill – from its antique homes to lovely parks and everything in between. This year’s deadline has been extended to Sunday, March 8, 2026.
Anyone can participate in the contest as long as the photos were taken in the neighborhood. All photos will be considered for this juried contest. There will also be a student section, and all of those entries will be inherent winners.
Winning photographs will be displayed at the Coldwell Banker Realty office at 350 7th Street SE — just down the street from Eastern Market. All young person/student entries will be displayed. CHRS will hold an opening reception sometime in April.
Here are the rules:
1. Photos must have been taken on Capitol Hill;
2. Photos must be submitted via the Google form in the highest resolution possible, by 11:59 pm on March 8, 2026;
3. Each submission must include a title, the photographer’s name, email address, and a note saying whether they are over or under 18.
4. Individuals can submit no more than two photos. We will only look at the first and second images an individual has submitted.
Members of the CHRS photo subcommittee will cull submissions to roughly 10 images that will then go to the judges.
Pictures posted here are 2025 entries.
In addition to having their photo displayed, the first-place winner will receive free tickets to our annual Capitol Hill House and Garden Tour. Honorable mentions will receive a free year’s membership to CHRS.
What do you love about your city? What do you hope it becomes? Personal connections are the key to successful urban planning in cities like DC, said James Darius Ball, director of the National Building Museum’s Future Cities initiative.
Ball delivered the Capitol Hill Restoration Society’s annual Dick Wolf Memorial Lecture on February 11 at the Hill Center.
The goal of Future Cities is to make urban design and development about people’s ties to place, Ball said: “We want to increase a sense of belonging in the process, so that we can increase the sense of belonging in the outcome.”
Ball mentioned DC’s Comprehensive Plan, the city’s 20-year vision of future land use, growth and development. The District’s Office of Planning embarked on a full rewrite of the plan in 2025.
“When I approach you and I say, `Hey, do you want to talk about the Comprehensive Plan?’ It’s like, `No, I don’t,’” Ball said.
“But if we can approach them with, `What do you hope the future of your community becomes? What do you hope that your places that you care about have?’ That’s a starting point to a conversation,” he said.
Rather than deciding in advance what cities should become, Ball said the initiative decided to pursue five “plotlines” or themes to help people find common ground: Affordable living, thriving communities, resilient infrastructure, health and innovative systems.
The hope is to bring people together on issues that often divide them along political and cultural lines.
Ball showed the audience a mapping tool called “I Hope This Becomes.” Users respond, in person or online, by pinning locations on the map and adding written reflections. The platform has generated more than 2,000 entries, Ball said.
The online platform is part of Coming Together, an exhibition that opened in September about how US cities are responding to post-pandemic shifts in downtown areas, housing and culture.
“This idea of community is so essential, arguably something we’ve lost post-pandemic,” Ball said.
Programming extends beyond the exhibit. Last fall, the museum launched an online series, Future Fridays, that highlights personal narratives and community perspectives from across the country.
The initiative will build toward larger efforts through 2027, including more exhibits and a fall event that will combine arts and culture with opportunities to engage in DC planning.
The Dick Wolf Memorial Lecture is named for former CHRS president Dick Wolf, a city planner and activist who championed historic preservation. The lecture series features themes of historic preservation and urban planning in Washington.
Say you’d love to refresh a room with new paint color. It’s tricky in a Capitol Hill row house, where light may come from only one direction at certain times of day. Enter Linda H. Bassert of Masterworks Design, speaker at our January Preservation Café.
Bassert explains how paint color can transform the look, feel and function of a room, including in an older home.
Bassert is the color consultant used by Tech Painting and Image Painting, two companies you find frequently on Capitol Hill. But she is an independent consultant, too, and is an award-winning designer of window treatments.
Six tips from Bassert’s presentation:
Start with inspiration, not paint color. Assess what’s there, such as art, rugs, fabric, tile or stone. Then let paint color tie elements together rather than leading the design.
Choose color based on how you use the room. Stronger colors work for energetic spaces, while bedrooms and restful rooms benefit from softer ones.
Transition colors at corners – light and shadow at corners make changes feel natural. Use color value to shape space. Lighter colors can look closer while deeper ones recede.
Contrast matters for crown molding and trim. The crown and ceiling should differ in value to make the ceiling appear higher. Paint the backs of built-in bookcases to add depth, with deeper colors to add balance and dimension. Paint soffits to match and recede into walls.
To sample paint correctly, use foam core boards and view color away from existing walls. Evaluate throughout the day to see how light affects your choices.
Is exterior color a more pressing concern? Bassert presented on exterior paint color in 2022, and that talk is available as well. Find Preservation Cafés on our website under Events & Tickets.
Follow us on Eventbrite and on our social media channels for notice of our next Preservation Café.
