Latest Tudor Place Plan Garners More Support from Community

got as close to a "win" as the institution could at the Georgetown Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC2E) Monday. Commissioners unanimously approved the latest iteration of with only one carefully-worded caveat: that the addition to the garage be redesigned "where practicable" to avoid visual impacts on neighbors on 32nd Street.

Tudor Place team has proposed new structural additions, including a greenhouse, a gate house cum visitors' entrance, a climate-controlled storage area for the archival collection in additions/renovations to the existing 1960s garage and an education center.

Under the guidance of a new architectural team, Hartman-Cox Architects, Tudor Place shrank its more ambitious plans and moved several proposed structures to meet .

Leslie Buhler, the executive director of Tudor Place Historic House and Garden, the team has "compressed all of our needs...to the point there is no where else to go" to store the thousands of documents and objects that make up the home's collection.

"The location, massing, detailing all work to minimize their impact on the property and respect the spatial organization of the historic landscape," said Peter May, National Park Service associate regional director for Lands, Resources, and Planning, in an press release from Tudor Place about the plan.

Neighbors who live near the project as well as the Citizens Association of Georgetown all spoke highly of most of the changes made to the plans. But the garage addition along 32nd Street continues to pose a visual issue for many neighbors with site lines of the property.

"I feel that it is not inappropriate for us as the ANC to convey to the OGB where there may be a neighborhood concern," said Commissioner Tom Birch, who drafted the ANC resolution.

"We support...the design here in concept with one reervation" said Birch, adding, "We urge the Old Georgetown Board to consider redesign of the addition to the garage with the objective where practicable to reduce the size of the addition in order to ameliorate visual impact on affected neighbors on 32nd Street."

The OGB meets Thursday at 9:15 a.m.