Mark Merlino, a builder and architect who has worked in the D.C. area for more than three decades, learned of the property, then being used as storage space for an adjacent building, in 2000. It had no electricity, water or sewer connections. It had recently been an auto repair shop, but a double barn door was a reminder of its time as a stable, carriage house and a repair shop for horse-drawn buggies in the mid-20th century.“That just comes to you,” he said.
A longtime renovator, Merlino made use of salvaged materials, from other work sites, in this renovation. The reclaimed materials include handrails, now on the second-floor landing, from a site in Baltimore; closet doors from a garage in downtown D.C.; kitchen doors from a D.C. church; radiators on the second level; and a cast-iron whale that once embellished an oven at a Baltimore seafood restaurant and now decorates the fireplace mantel.Merlino sold the property in 2017 for $1.17 million, and since then it has been an owner-occupied residence and a rental property.