In Virginia: Legal scholar Viet Dinh and his wife, lawyer Jennifer Ashworth Dinh, bought a four-bedroom Beaux Arts home in Alexandria’s Wellington neighborhood for $4.08 million. Built in 1914, the house sits on Arcturus on the Potomac Road and has views of the river, the Capitol, and the Washington Monument. It has a pool, hot tub, media room, and dock with boat and Jet Ski lifts. Viet Dinh, a Georgetown University law professor, clerked for Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor, served as an assistant attorney general from 2001 to 2003, and is one of the authors of the Patriot Act. He is also founder of Bancroft Associates, a DC law and consulting firm where his wife also works.

Republican pollster and pundit Bill McInturff sold a four-bedroom Colonial on Stonebridge Road in Alexandria for $815,000. McInturff conducted the polling for Senator John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign and is a partner and cofounder of Public Opinion Strategies.

In DC: Washington Post Book World couple Marie Arana and Jonathan Yardley sold a Victorian rowhouse on Fifth Street on Capitol Hill for $1.8 million. The four-bedroom house was built in 1890. Arana, whose novel Cellophane came out this year, is editor of Book World; Yardley is a noted Post book reviewer.

In Maryland: Local tycoon Mitchell Rales sold a four-bedroom, five-bathroom Colonial on McCrossin Lane in Potomac for $1.3 million. The house sits on more than an acre and has two kitchens and a two-story great room. Rales, who Forbes estimates is worth more than $2 billion, cofounded Danaher Corporation, a manufacturing and technology company.