1893 Georgetown Victorian was once owned by a famous gardener

Gardens helped define this townhouse in Georgetown’s East Village section — both its history and what it is today.

Its most prominent recent owner, James van Sweden, was a landscape architect who designed well-known gardens around the nation’s capital. He also made over the grounds outside this Victorian-style house at 2813 N St. NW, now on the market for $2.15 million.

The current owners said that one really special thing about the house is that, unlike most of its neighbors, it’s set back from the street and sidewalk, behind a front garden.

“That’s a big deal because we never had to have drapes or shutters on those windows,” owner Garry Boehlert said. “A lot of people live right on the sidewalk and have to have their drapes or shutters pulled at all times, but we just had complete privacy.”

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During van Sweden’s 38 years of owning the property, its lower level was the launchpad for his architectural landscaping company, Oehme, van Sweden & Associates. And the gardens became a laboratory for the development of perennials and grasses that launched a style known as “new American garden.”

The company is responsible for many gardens still blooming in the D.C. area. Their locations include the Federal Reserve campus, the World War II Memorial, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and Reagan National Airport. Van Sweden, who died in 2013, also designed sections of garden at Oprah Winfrey’s South Bend, Ind., estate.

In his book “Bold Romantic Gardens,” van Sweden wrote of the “theatrical quality” and the “mystery” of the East Village town house’s backyard garden. He described a “dry stream” of steppingstones leading to a “pool” of Pennsylvania bluestone. The garden also has a bronze bust of van Sweden by sculptor Betty Mailhouse Dunston, with whom he worked on the Francis Scott Key Park in Georgetown.

Boehlert and his wife, Trixie Moser, bought the house from van Sweden in 2008 and moved in after an extensive renovation in 2009.

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Van Sweden “used the house as a lab for his work and his life, and [Boehlert] and I needed a home,” Moser said, noting that van Sweden had a harpsichord in his dining room instead of a table and chairs. “So we had to take a place that was more experimental and make it more livable.”

That meant replacing strip lighting, flooring and other 1970s-style modifications van Sweden had made in what Moser called a “restovation” — for restorative renovation. She and Boehlert worked with an architect to “open up spaces” with archways instead of rectangular frames. They also restored Victorian-style woodwork that had been removed by van Sweden.

Eliminating redundancy was a priority, Boehlert said. “People that have double parlors, living spaces and dens a lot of times never go in those rooms or ever use them. We wanted to make sure every part of the house had a function.”

The front door opens, on the main level, to a foyer that leads to a living room with a deep wood-burning fireplace. The dining room is next to the kitchen, which has Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances. This level also has a powder room and a coat closet. The rear garden is accessed from the kitchen.

On the second level, the primary bedroom has a windowed nook. This bedroom does not have an en suite bathroom, but there is a hall bathroom with two vanities as well as a marble shower with three shower heads. Another bedroom has an en suite bathroom. A hallway laundry closet has a washer and dryer.

The lower level has a media room with a wet bar and a third bedroom with an en suite bathroom. There is no designated parking. On-street permit parking is available.

The property is protected by a conservation easement with the L’Enfant Trust, which prohibits demolition, neglect and “insensitive alterations.”

From their front windows, Boehlert recalled, he watched Georgetown life pass by, from historic tours to marriage proposals. “It was just a great ambiance,” he said. “It’s really charming and enchanting at night to go out and just walk through the neighborhood. It’s a beautiful home.”

$2,150,000

2813 N St. NW, Washington, D.C.

• Bedrooms/bathrooms: 3/4
• Approximate square footage: 2,300
• Lot size: 1,930 square feet
• Features: The 1893 house was updated in 2008 to include original Victorian details, including molding and archways. It has front and rear gardens.
• Listing agent: Nancy Taylor Bubes, Washington Fine Properties

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