2417 I STREET NW
Year Built
1885
Click photo below to see full sized image.
D. Vogt, 2022
History
This two-story, two-bay brick rowhouse was built in 1885, one of a group of four houses built by Duvall & Marr to serve as rental property. It has an English basement and a back fenced garden area. In 1890, Thomas H, Alexander owned the four rows at 2413-2419 I St.
The mid-1950s were a transition period in Foggy Bottom. The 2415-2419 I St. houses, built 1885, provide an example - No. 2415 was occupied by several families totaling more than 25 people. It was heated with a wood-burning stove and had an outdoor toilet. The No. 2417 house had just been gutted and was being renovated. The No. 2419 house, windows and doors missing, was abandoned and condemned.
The house’s original façade was damaged as a result of Metro subway construction down the center of I Street in the early 1970s and has been rebuilt. From time to time, one can feel the vibrations of the metro trains traveling down I Street inside the house. There were significant renovations in 1954, 1990, and 2020. The interior of the house was featured in Architecture DC, Fall 2022, p. 83 and Washingtonian Magazine, Sept. 2022, p.51.
The house has a distinctive original custom decorative black cast iron railing and fence, installed in the 1950s. A variety of black iron is used in fencing, stairways, and railings throughout the neighborhood.
Resident/Owner
At the time of construction of the four houses at 2413-2419 I Street, Duvall and Marr also obtain permits to build five brick alley dwellings on Snows Court, directly behind the I Street houses. Duvall owned and rented out the properties from 1885 to 1889, when he sold them to Thompson Alexander, a real estate and insurance agent. The properties were held as a group, until 1908 when 2417 was sold separately.
1881 - Margret Williamson (City Directory)
1887 - Rosetta A. Boston, a teacher (City Directory)
1888 - Ella M. Boston to receive her friends at the house on New Years Day (The Bee, Dec. 29, 1888, p.3)
1890 - Thomas H. Alexander, owner (Deeds); Rosetta A. Boston, teacher; Maria E. Boston, washing (City Directory)
1894 - Annie E. Reed, dressmaker (City Directory)
1900 - Mary White and daughters (City Directory)
1903 - William H. Reed, a porter (City Directory)
1907 - Deed transfer from T.F. Schneider to Thomas Route (Evening Star, Jan. 12, 1907, p. 7)
1907-1909- Mary White, domestic, took in washing; Ella White, domestic, passed away in 1907 at age 40 (City Directory, D.C. Health Office Record)
1909 - House offered for rent to "colored" by James F. Shea, unfurnished, 6 rooms & w (water?), for $18.50 (Evening Star, July 15, 1909, p. 20)
1909 - William Reed, janitor (City Directory)
1910 - Spencer Williams, messenger (City Directory)
1914 - Murray Barker (City Directory)
1918 - Deed transfer from Thomas J. Root (sic) to Amelia Homann (Evening Star, Nov. 16, 1918, p. 5)
1918 - Silias Parker (colored) (Wash. Post, Sept. 15, 1918) - Parker was arrested for selling liquor and stabbing the arresting police officer in the neck. He was arrested after running into an alley at 26th and M Sts.
1920-1921 - Della M. Shaw (renter) (Census) - Ms. Shaw was a single 46 year old African American, born in North Carolina. She worked as a cook in a lunch room. But she also ran her own bakery - The Boston House Pastry Shop - out of her home (See photo No. 8 below). A December 5th Times Herald newspaper advertisement offered "Catering - For Christmas and all other times serve Della Shaw's Real Home-made bread,," as well as hot rolls, pan rolls, old fashioned pound cake and pastries and wedding cake. She had a telephone (West 2537). She died in 1937 and had a memorial service at 19th St. Baptist Church.
1921 - PH Harris (owner) (Deeds)
1923 - Ms. Annie Jefferson (City Directory)
1929 - Mamie Bell, died at the house at age 58 (Wash. Times Herald, Mar. 4, 1929, p. 31)
1930 - John G. Harris
1931 - William Frye (colored), hit and knocked down an elderly man with his automobile at 12th & Penn. (Wash. Times Herald, Jan. 26, 1931, p. 13)
1937 - Aikens family (Wash. Times Herald)
1940 - Alex G. Aikens, laborer; wife Bertha; Thomas H. Aikens (renter) (City Directory)
1940 - Arthur Gore, laborer, injured on the job (Evening Star)
1952 - With the coming of Foggy Bottom redevelopment, the house was purchased by developer Benjamin Burch in 1952 and sold to Rhea Z. Radin (1910-1991) the same year. It was a shell of building when she remodeled it and moved in in 1954. The house next door (2415) had several families with 25 people living in it and the house on the other side (2419) was vacant. By the next year, Radin had entered the real estate business and sold additional houses in the historic district. In 1960, Radin moved to Capital Hill. Radin was born in New York, grew up in California, and was a psychiatric social worker before entering real estate.
1953 - House offered for rent ($150/mo.) by Woodward & Norris - described as a "2-bedroom, Georgetown-type house, completely modernized and beaut. dec.; features fenced patio in rear." (Evening Star, Nov. 15, 1953. p. 48)
1955 - James G. Ryan (he had a telephone) (City Directory)
1960 - "Under construction" (City Directory)
1970 - Lowell D. Jones (City Directory)
1970 - 1973 - Rhea Radin (Deeds and the Foggy Bottom News)
1973 -1984 - D. Lowell Jones (owner)
1984 - Robert (Coach Bob) and Norrene Vogt (owners) Their daughter Denise and a roommate, Lisa Tate, rented the house for five years; both walked to work.
1987 -1990 - Lisa Tate and Ragnar Thoresen, renters
In the early 1990s, Bob and Norrene sold their house in suburban Lanham, Maryland and spent the next 30 years of their lives in the house. They were community activists and held positions on the FBA Board. Their son musician Bobby Vogt lived with them for a few years in the early 2000s. After Norrene and Bob's death and then significant renovations (2017-2020), their daughter and her husband moved into the house in 2020.
2017 - Frank Leone and Denise Vogt. They founded the Foggy Bottom Association's History Project to record history of the neighborhood.
Recollections
"The only other white people on the block (besides the Kennards) -- I Street between 24th and 25th -- was the occupant of Rhea Radin's house (2417 I St.), a renter. The only automobile parked on the block belonged to the Kennards." Excerpt Foggy Bottom News, "Foggy Bottom Five Years Ago", January 1959, Number 5.
"My initiation to Foggy Bottom was depressing. I had been considered out of my mind by most of my friends when I decided to remodel the shell that was then 2417 Eye Street, and the cold day in January 1954 when I moved in was most inauspicious." Excerpt from Foggy Bottom News, "From the Bottom Up," by Rhea Radin, June 1959, Vol. 2, Number 8
I recall seeing the house for sale while walking through the neighborhood with my mother in the early 1980s. We might have parked the car in Foggy Bottom and walked to the Kennedy Center. Once inside the house, the baby blue-colored iron railings on the stairs made us laugh, because we knew they would not remain that color for long. Also, a small – and uninsulated – brick bathroom room had been attached to the rear of the house. I don’t recall that we thought the house was small, because we both were so taken by the house’s charm with its compact features and its location.
- Denise Vogt (renter, owner, 2000-present), May 2022
"I remember your dad used to sit on the steps and say hi to everyone who passed by. He wore his red Washington Nationals baseball cap. Sometimes he'd really draw a crowd with his stories." told to Denise Vogt about father, Robert "Bob" Vogt by a passing neighbor, Summer 2023
Denise Vogt and Frank Leone are co-founders and co-chairs of the FBA History Project, established in January 2021.
"Lisa lived in 2417 Eye St from about 1985 and I moved there when we got married in June 1987, we moved out in May 1990 when we bought the house on Capitol Hill. Our next door neighbors were Morella Hansen and Marge & Dave, we also knew Pat who lived in the middle of the block in a house with a large window with a conductor sculpture. The corner house on NH Ave kept a very nice garden.
We had an outdoor cat who loved the back yard and alley.
We used to have tomatoes in the back of the fence toward the parking lot, always full sun back there.
Charming bedrooms, the front room was barely large enough to fit a bed. Remember feeling vibrations from the Metro passing in the tunnel underneath I Street. In the mid 90s I renovated the kitchen for your parents (the Vogts).
We would walk to Safeway downstairs in the Watergate complex where there was a small shopping mall. Peoples Drug, bakery and liquor store. At street level was the post office and Riggs Bank, also fancy stores like Gucci and YSL. We would go to the Kennedy Center a few times a year, mostly to the Natl Symphony and ballet. Of course we used Tower Records for video rental and music purchases and walked to West End Theater for movies. Not Foggy Bottom but the Biograph on M Street had the indie and foreign movies.
Restaurants: Donatello on Penn Ave, we would mostly walk up to Dupont and go to Cafe Rondo and Tabard Inn and Bacchus. Lisa worked at 1259 Eye St downtown and I worked at the Norwegian embassy until 1989 (I'm Back at the embassy now) then in an office on Wisconsin Ave by Glover Park." - Ragnar Thoresen, renter, email Oct. 2025
Source Material
Foggy Bottom News, "From the Bottom Up," by Rhea Radin, June 1959, Vol. 2, Number 8
Foggy Bottom News, "Foggy Bottom Five Years Ago," Jan. 1959, Vol. 2., Number 5
DC HPO, Historyquest DC
U.S. Census, 1920
Boyd’s City Directory of Washington D.C.
DC Recorder of Deeds, property records
“2415 Eye Street, NW,” Traceries (May 1984)
George Beveridge, "City's Foggy Bottom See Test Ground of Urban Renewal," Evening Star, Oct. 23, 1955
FBA History Project, "Working-Class Row Houses." Clio: Your Guide to History. https://theclio.com/tour/2098/3
FBA History Project, "The Historic District's Longest Row." Clio: Your Guide to History. https://theclio.com/tour/2098/18
Document, Vogt Collection
Evening/Sunday Star, Jan. 15 and 17, 1937
Washington Times, Aug. 14, 1920
2415-2419 I St., July 1955 (Vogt Collection)
2417 I St., 1956 (Washington Star)
2417 I St. rear façade renovation - extension - door to lower right connected to privy, 1990
2415-2419 I St., early 1960s (Vogt collection)
Vogt family, 1980 (Vogt collection)
2417 I St house plat, May 1972
2415-2419 I St. during renovation (Progressive Renewal), Wash Post (Nov. 1959)
Article on Della Shaw's mission work, "Helping the Poor," Washington Bee, Jan. 9, 1909 (Lib. of Congress)
1920 - Della Shaw's ad for the "Boston House Pastry Shop," operated out of the house, Washington Times, Aug. 14, 1920
Norrene Vogt has biscuits for a neighbor's dogs, 2009.
Bobby Vogt and nephew Henry together on house steps, 2004