In DC: Journalist Ryan Lizza and wife Christina Gillespie, a physician, bought a five-bedroom, six-bath Colonial in Chevy Chase DC for $1.1 million. Within walking distance of the Friendship Heights Metro, the house has an in-law suite. A former editor at the New Republic, Lizza is a Washington correspondent for the New Yorker. Gillespie, a family doctor, is on the faculty of Georgetown University Hospital.
Linda Douglass, journalist turned Obama-campaign spokeswoman, and her husband, lawyer John Phillips, sold a six-bedroom, eight-bath Federal-style rowhouse in Georgetown for $4.6 million. Built in 1805, it has six levels, seven fireplaces, and a three-car garage. Douglass, a former contributing editor at the National Journal and a correspondent for CBS and ABC, joined the Obama team in spring 2008. Phillips is a founding partner of Phillips & Cohen, a DC law firm that specializes in representing whistleblowers.
Finance executive Peter J. Clare bought in Phillips Park, a new development off Foxhall Road, for $2.4 million. Clare heads the global aerospace, defense, and government-services division of the Carlyle Group, the DC private-equity firm.
In Maryland: Former Redskins great John Riggins and wife Lisa Marie bought a house in Cabin John for $1.7 million. Riggins, a running back for the Skins from 1976 to 1979 and from 1981 to 1985, was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1992.
Anne T. Sidey, widow of legendary newsman Hugh Sidey, bought a two-bedroom, three-bath condo in Somerset House on Wisconsin Avenue for $1.6 million. Hugh Sidey, who died in 2005, covered the White House for Time and wrote the magazine’s Presidency column from 1966 to 1996.
Lawyers Justin and Darcy Ochs bought a six-bedroom, five-bath Colonial on Falmouth Road in Bethesda’s Westmoreland Hills neighborhood for $1.5 million. Built in 1957, the house has a flagstone patio and sunroom off the garden. Justin Ochs is a partner in WilmerHale’s corporate-practice group; Darcy Van Kirk Ochs, a counsel at WilmerHale, specializes in corporate finance.
Homebuilding scion John G. Gosnell bought a condo at Fox Hill, a senior-living community in Bethesda, for $1.4 million. He was head of the Gosnell Companies, a local building firm that was founded by his father, Clarence W. Gosnell, and is now run by his sons, John W. and Barry R. Gosnell.
In Virginia: Former Redskins quarterback Mark Brunell sold a seven-bedroom, ten-bath Colonial on Nicholas Run Drive in Great Falls for $3 million. The house, which Brunell bought for $3.7 million in 2007, listed for $3.8 million. It has 12,000 square feet, a pool, and a four-car garage. Brunell played last season for the New Orleans Saints.
Some sales information provided by American City Business Leads and Diana Hart of Sotheby’s International Realty.
This article first appeared in the March 2009 issue of The Washingtonian. For more articles from that issue, click here.
