Is “Kent” A Real D.C. Neighborhood?
Could these chairs be situated in “Kent”?
This item in Washingtonian magazine’s latest roundup of luxury home sales caught my eye:
“Dermatologist Tina Alster and her husband, Paul Frazer, sold a five-bedroom, seven-bath stucco house in Kent for $3.8 million. The house has a wine cellar and five fireplaces. A former Canadian diplomat, Frazer is a senior adviser for mCapitol Management, a government-relations firm.”
Alster, Frazer—best of luck. I have no issue to take up with either of you. What made me do a double take was “Kent.” Never heard of it before! With a price tag like that, I immediately ruled out some random exurb, unless Alster and Frazer bought the house and the entire town along with it. Could Kent be a section of McLean? Potomac? Perhaps a swath of land once part of Jack Kent Cooke’s kingdom, and thus renamed (sort of like Dolly Parton and Dollyville, her amusement park)?
Nope, nope and nope. The blurb is filed under D.C., not Maryland or Virginia. I consulted the Washington City Paper’s Hoods & Services Guide, the ultimate authority on D.C. neighborhoods. Nada.
To our two in-house neighborhood experts, I then inquired “Ever heard of Kent?” Responses weren’t exactly meaty.
On first googling, here’s what I’ve retrieved: a sparse description of Kent as an area in upper Northwest. If any Kentians want to chime in, please do so either below or at rsamuelson@washingtoncitypaper.com (preferably both).
We’ll get to the bottom of this folks.
Photo by Darrow Montgomery.
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Linked From: December 1st, 2008Washington City Paper: Housing Complex - Some Say “Kent” Is a Real D.C. Neighborhood
3:06 pm[...] week, I wrote a short post about Kent. I’d never heard about it until unexpectedly coming across the name in Washingtonian magazine. [...]
4:01 pm
kent is a real neighborhood. i grew up there. it’s really palisades. just off of macarthur boulevard.
4:28 pm
So the people of Kent know they live in Kent? Or do they mostly think (and say) they live in the Palisades?
11:43 am
If you look at your tax assessment, it says Kent. But since most people outside the neighborhood refer to the general area as Palisades, it’s safe to say that most people, especially those moving in now, probably don’t know it’s called Kent.
4:37 pm
Kent is one of the official neighborhoods used by the D.C. government. Go to the Real Property Assessment Page on the D.C. website. Click on the drop-down box for Neighborhoods. There are 964 houses in Kent.
Kent is on the north side of MacArthur Blvd. Palisades is on the south side.