Neighborhood in the News: A real estate story that’s also a ‘how we met’ story, and DC’s creepy cryptid tale

The two touches of Japan in Forest Hills: The Japanese-style garden at Hillwood, and Bill and Peggy Breer’s former home (above). (TruPlace/Long & Foster photo)

Not many real estate articles open with a “how we met” story. But this one does, and it’s about our now-former neighbors, Bill and Peggy Breer. The Breers, who met in Japan 65 years ago, built their Japan-inspired Forest Hills home in 2001. It’s now for sale.

The Breers will be missed, and our public thanks are overdue. When Forest Hills Connection was founded in 2011 under the umbrella of the Forest Hills Neighborhood Alliance, Bill Breer was one of our advisers, and he remained involved for some years as our money guy, a.k.a. the alliance treasurer. (Forest Hills Connection is now a program of Van Ness Main Street.)

New potential for Days Inn development: Urban Turf picked up our September 24th story about plans to sell the parking structure behind the hotel, and noted a couple of things we did not. Two years prior, developer Jair Lynch explored purchasing the hotel and the parking areas for a mixed-use and mixed-income development. Also, the redevelopment of the parking structure would be the neighborhood’s most substantial project since Park Van Ness was completed in 2016.

An expensive water feature: On October 18th, a water main break disrupted travel on and alongside the 4100 and 4200 blocks of Connecticut Avenue. The extensive damage to the brick sidewalk just south of Van Ness Street is still visible. (ABC7, DC News Now)

At last, a DC creature of myth and legend: Every state has at least one cryptid (the New Jersey devil is a famous example). We apparently have one too: the Metro Monster. As ancient legend (or a four-year-old Reddit post) has it, it lives in the Red Line tunnels between Dupont Circle and Friendship Heights.

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