The secretive $23 million sale of a mansion in Washington, D.C., just became the city’s third-priciest residential transaction.
The short, but notable, saga started Monday when a 16,200-square-foot property in the city’s Woodland-Normanstone Terrace neighborhood hit the public market. On Thursday, the house sold, according to the listing on Homes.com. The quick turnaround indicates the property was likely sold privately.
Aside from the sale price and square footage, little information about the home is available. Daniel Heider, executive vice president of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, represented the seller. Heider confirmed the deal was the third-priciest sale ever in D.C. and the highest sale so far in 2025.
Public records show the home last traded hands in 2012, when it sold to a trust connected to Frank White. In 2015, that trust transferred the deed to an LLC connected to Frank and Sylvia White. The couple is known among D.C.’s political elite as big-time Democrat donors. Local media identified the pair as hosting fundraising events at their home in the past several years.
Records of the sale to the Whites show that the original property was built in 1923. That house was eventually replaced with a new build in 2017, according to Homes.com, and it’s a four-story contemporary that includes a finished basement and a pool.
Though there are few details about the property, its location in the Woodland-Normanstone Terrace neighborhood is telling.
Positioned just east of the Naval Observatory, where the vice president resides, the neighborhood is known for its privacy and quiet-but-engaged streets, according to Homes.com. It's home to a high number of federal employees and several foreign embassies.
DC’s ultraluxury market is hot
The sale is just the latest in a string of ultraluxury transactions in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia housing market that have accompanied President Donald Trump’s second election and subsequent inauguration.
Since he was elected in November, an influx of luxury buyers connected to Trump have flooded the market, one already teeming with high-profile residents.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the CEO of investment giant Cantor Fitzgerald, paid $25 million in cash for his new home in D.C.'s Foxhall neighborhood, according to media reports.
David Sacks, the PayPal cofounder Trump appointed as his “White House A.I. & crypto czar,” purchased a $10.3 million penthouse in Northwest D.C., as Axios first reported.
At $23 million, Thursday’s sale ties for the third-priciest transaction in D.C.’s history. It’s companion: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ 2016 purchase of an art museum-turned-house in the Kalorama neighborhood, as local media reported at the time.
Topping the list are Lutnick’s December purchase and media entrepreneur Robert Albritton’s 2007 buy of a historic mansion for $24 million.