Both units of the Louise Hand Laundry building in Washington, D.C. are for sale, priced at $1,575,000 for Unit 1 and $1,275,000 for Unit 2.Both units of the Louise Hand Laundry building in Washington, D.C. are for sale, priced at $1,575,000 for Unit 1 and $1,275,000 for Unit 2. 1405 12th St. NW, units 1 and 2 – Bedrooms/bathrooms: 4/4 – Estimated square meters: 1,900 for Unit 1 and 1,500 for Unit 2 – Features: This 1918 building was home to a prominent laundry before being converted into two apartments in the late 1980s. It still has the high ceilings, concrete floors and exposed brick of converted industrial homes. Each unit has a parking space. Listing broker: Matt McHugh, Compass Real Estate
Anna and Dan Kahoe have a love for old things, which is why the couple, former owners of DC antique store GoodWood, are “serious real estate saviors,” according to Anna.
Take, for example, the brick building at 1405 12th St. NW. She had her eye on it for nearly two decades before she bought it in 2008. She remembers walking through the neighborhood with her boyfriend and future realtor Matt McHugh and seeing the industrial structure on a street of row houses. “I’d like to live there someday,” she told him.
The building, now divided into two apartments, was built in 1918 to house the Louise Hand Laundry, whose name still appears on the facade. The business was founded in 1912 by Margaret Nicodemus, a widow who ran it for more than 30 years.
Beulah Hall, a Nebraska native and pioneering female life insurance agent, bought the property in 1943 and turned it into the laundry of choice for Washington’s elite. The techniques used were traditional: delicate items were shaken in a glass jar of soapy water, and the men’s shirt starch was homemade.
The laundry’s customers included several embassies, the Smithsonian Institution, and the White House. According to the building’s owners’ lore, John Quincy Adams’ baptismal gown and a tablecloth belonging to Napoleon were among the items cleaned for the Smithsonian. Bedspreads belonging to George Washington were washed for Mount Vernon. Administrations from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Dwight D. Eisenhower relied on the laundry. When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, a pile of his clean shirts was waiting to be picked up.
When Hall retired in 1977, architect Robert Lewis and artist Sanford Shapiro bought the building and converted it into two apartments. The apartments—one on the ground floor and one upstairs—were open and airy, with glass-block walls and fireplaces. Lewis and Shapiro were known for throwing lavish parties, inviting (or perhaps admitting) more than 400 partygoers into the combined 3,400 square feet of apartments. At the time, the basement had a shower large enough to seat 12.
The building passed through several owners before the Kahoes bought it during the Great Recession — a feat that, according to Anna, required “moving heaven and earth” (or, more literally, selling their Mount Pleasant home and another property) when the economy tanked. The couple improved both apartments, using copies of Lewis’s blueprints that had been passed down from previous owners.
“If we find these rescue homes, we will never want to remodel anything we have fallen in love with again,” says Anna.
Anna and Dan lived in the lower of the two apartments until 2011, when a dilapidated carriage house lured them to Washington, D.C.’s historic Blagden Alley neighborhood. They’ve rented both units since then. But the laundry building is the “crown jewel” of their renovation. They’re selling it now, she said, because she believes the property should be owner-occupied.
“Nobody owns the Louise Hand Laundry,” Anna said. “She’s just looking for her next steward.” The building is listed as two units, though it has been sold as a pair in the past. Details in both, including exposed brick interior walls, high cement ceilings and spiral staircases, point to its evolution as one of D.C.’s few renovated industrial buildings.
The front door of Unit 1 opens to a bedroom with a full bath. The galley kitchen is next to the dining room, which has an alcove for a bar cart. There is a bedroom with an en suite bath and a family room with built-in shelving and access to a patio. Another living room has a fireplace.
The door to Unit 2, reached by a staircase on the side of the building, opens to the dining room and kitchen. The living room connects to one of the two bedrooms, a bathroom and a laundry room. The master bedroom has an en suite bathroom and a spiral staircase that leads to a loft that is open to the bedroom below.
In the basement is a bonus room that Anna used as a closet, but Dan described as a “department store.” There are French brass clothes rails and a dressing room-style 360-degree mirror that will convince the buyer.
The property has its own parking space and an attached garage.
$1,575,000 for Unit 1; $1,275,000 for Unit 2
1405 12th St. NW, units 1 and 2
- Bedrooms/bathrooms: 4/4
- Estimated square meters: 1,900 for Unit 1 and 1,500 for Unit 2
- Functions: This 1918 building was home to a prominent laundry before being converted into two apartments in the late 1980s. It still has the high ceilings, concrete floors and exposed brick of converted industrial homes. Each unit has a parking space.
- Listing broker: Matt McHugh, Compass Real Estate
