Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House

I noticed this home for sale a few years ago and now see that it has sold. As a fan of everything FLW it pleases me to no end that this wonderful home has been purchased by someone who will restore it and act as a responsible custodian for years to come. See the full article from this past July in the Los Angeles Times

Acorn Park in Silver Spring, MD

I took this from the offical Silver Spring web site.

Acorn Park1190 East West Hwy, Silver Spring, MD 20910Categories: Public Art in Silver Spring Historic Sites Parks and Plazas Public Art map it
Acorn Park is thought to be the location of the spring that looked silver in the sunlight, thus the name Silver Spring.
Murials of Historic Silver Spring
Artist: Mame Cohalon
Acorn Park is all that remains of Francis Preston Blair's estate, "Silver Spring," named after his discovery in 1840 of a nearby mica-speckled spring. This park might be small, but it is chock-full of good stuff to see. Nestled up to the first Silver Spring Discovery building (the old Caldor) is a quaint little park with an acorn gazebo and beautiful murals. Discovery Communications is trying to rid us of the bad habit of referring to the building as the "old Caldor," but in this case it was actually the Caldor Company that commissioned the five-panel mural by artist Mame Cohalon and restored the gazebo and park.

Playdate at Tudor Place

For our birthdays, my wife and I try to find some hidden gems in Washington or surrounding areas to visit. Since it was her birthday this time I got to choose and picked "Tudor Place" in Georgetown for our visit. Built just after the turn of the 19 century by a granddaughter of Martha Washington, the house and grounds are quite impressive to see and well worth the trip. Go on a weekday and you are almost guaranteed a private tour. The tour takes about an hour. I tried but could not get them to let me go up into the attic. It was well worth an afternoon visit and there was plenty of parking on the street around the mansion entrance.

Next time I am going call ahead and work out a look see into the attic.....

New FDA building

In December of this past year the Food and Drug Administration dedicated the newly refurbished Building One at the new FDA Campus in White Oak. This was a big step in the decade long transformation of this site from the old Naval Surface Warfare Institute into the FDA’s main campus. Presently about 3500 employees are located there and as the campus grows it is expected that over 8,000 FDA workers will be moved to the campus from outlying FDA locations. This is big news for the surrounding communities as it is hoped that the growth of FDA will help with home sales in a area that has been hit hard by the recent housing slump.

Building One is the cool old “decoish” main building that reminds me of some of the building I used to see on the old Superman TV show back when I was a kid. We can count ourselves fortunate that the FDA saw to preserve this old beauty.

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2008/NEW01930.html