A 5,600-square-foot Georgian Revival in Washington’s Berkley enclave sits on land with a direct line to one of the country’s first modern art museums
Some ground carries history with it, even after everything that once stood on it is gone. This Georgian Revival residence in Washington’s Berkley neighborhood sits on land that once belonged to Duncan and Marjorie Phillips – the couple behind the Phillips Collection, one of America’s great art museums – and its story starts less with the house itself than with the people who called this ground home.
Long before Phillips Park existed as a neighborhood, this stretch of Foxhall Road was a single private estate, the place where two of Washington’s most consequential art collectors chose to live once their public work was done for the day. That history has shaped everything that came after, including the home that stands here now.
From Dunmarlin to Phillips Park
Duncan Phillips, an art collector, and his wife Marjorie Acker Phillips, an Impressionist painter, together founded what became the Phillips Collection, widely regarded as the first museum of modern art in the United States. That museum has always lived in Duncan’s Dupont Circle mansion, opened to the public in the 1920s. But by 1930, the couple had acquired so much art for their personal collection that they needed more room to live alongside it, so they built a second home in the Foxhall neighborhood, which they named “Dunmarlin,” a combination of their own names and those of their two children, Mary Marjorie and Laughlin.
Dunmarlin sat on a 16-acre estate just off Foxhall Road. The 26-room mansion changed hands several times after Marjorie Phillips’s death, and was ultimately torn down in the late 1980s. The property later became Phillips Park, an enclave of 46 luxury estate home sites, each custom-designed by an owner’s chosen architect and builder.
Duncan Phillips was known for championing artists before they became famous – Georgia O’Keeffe among them – and the museum he and Marjorie built still holds Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party,” one of the artist’s best-known works. For a buyer moving into Phillips Park today, that history isn’t incidental; it’s the reason the neighborhood exists at all.
The House Itself
Built in 2016 by Mauck Zantzinger with architect David Jones, this five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bath home spans more than 5,600 square feet on Meadow Lane, one of the largest lots in the enclave. According to Daryl Judy of Washington Fine Properties, the home announces itself immediately: a spiral staircase winds through all three levels beneath an oculus that opens to the sky, illuminated to dramatic effect after dark. An elevator serves every floor.
The main level centers on an open family room and kitchen finished in marble and custom cabinetry, with a fireplace and multiple sets of French doors leading outside. Formal living and dining rooms, each backed by a butler’s pantry, round out the entertaining spaces. Outside, a resort-style backyard includes a pool with waterfall features, a covered cabana with a television, two fire pits, a hot tub, and a full outdoor kitchen, all set within mature, professionally landscaped grounds.
Upstairs, the primary suite includes a custom dressing room, a separate walk-in closet, and a marble bathroom with a soaking tub. Three additional bedrooms share the floor, along with a library positioned to look out toward the Washington Monument. The entry level adds a fifth bedroom, a recreation room, a mudroom, and a two-car garage.
Life Along the Foxhall Corridor
Berkley sits at the western edge of the city, bordered by Foxhall Road and the wooded ravine of Battery Kemble Park, a former Civil War battery site whose trails offer a genuine sense of seclusion this close to downtown. The Glover-Archbold Trail and the C&O Canal towpath are both within easy reach as well, giving residents miles of wooded running and cycling routes without leaving the neighborhood.
Georgetown sits just to the east, and it’s here that daily life extends into the city’s social fabric. Café Milano, the see-and-be-seen Italian restaurant on Prospect Street, has been a fixture for politicians, diplomats, and visiting celebrities for decades, while Fiola Mare offers Michelin-starred Italian seafood on the Georgetown waterfront, with a client list that has included sitting presidents. Beyond dinner, Georgetown’s boutiques along M Street and Wisconsin Avenue, its historic rowhouse streets, and Georgetown University itself round out a neighborhood that functions as this corridor’s social and cultural hub.
Club life follows the same pattern as the rest of the city’s old-guard neighborhoods: the Georgetown Club and the Chevy Chase Country Club anchor the traditional end of the spectrum, while Potomac Boat Club, just below Georgetown along the river, offers rowing for residents who want to keep the social scene active rather than purely social. A mile or so from Phillips Park, the Field School occupies the former estate of Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz, prominent Washington developers and philanthropists – one more example, alongside Phillips Park itself, of a grand private estate finding new life after its original owners.
A Legacy Worth Living In
The house at 2107 Foxhall Road tells two stories at once. There’s the story of the ground itself – a private estate that arose from one of the country’s great museums, then, once its original owners were gone, quietly became one of Washington’s most coveted enclaves. And there’s the story of the house that stands there now: a home built decades after the Phillipses left, but one that shares their instinct for building something substantial, considered, and meant to last.
That pairing is what makes this address more than a well-appointed listing. The public legacy – the Phillips Collection, still drawing visitors to Dupont Circle nearly a century later – is well known. What’s less visible is the private side: the ground where that legacy’s founders actually lived, now home to a new owner who gets both the privacy Berkley has always offered and easy reach of everything Georgetown and the wider city have to give. For the right buyer, that’s the appeal of Phillips Park in a single sentence – storied ground, built on quietly, still worth building on.
About the Expert Daryl Judy is a real estate agent with Washington Fine Properties, based in Washington, D.C. He serves clients throughout the district and the surrounding Virginia and Maryland suburbs, including McLean.
This article is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or investment advice. The views and opinions expressed herein reflect those of the individuals quoted and do not represent an endorsement of any company, product, or service mentioned. Readers should conduct their own due diligence and consult qualified professionals before making any investment decisions.
