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.
Our November Preservation Cafe provided an up-close — and inside! — look at the newly restored 1891 pipe organ at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.
Attendees were invited to climb the narrow, twisting staircase to the organ loft to see reinstallation work in progress and examine the beautiful wooden exterior case, inner workings and towering pipes along with the manuals (also known as keyboards) and pedalboard.
Have you been thinking about undertaking a home improvement project? Or do you just have questions about your home? We help you find answers and inspiration each year at our FREE Capitol Hill Restoration Society House Expo. The event is held in the North Hall of Eastern Market, and this year’s was held Saturday, November 1.
