The Georgetown home where renowned television chef Julia Child tasted recipes for her best-selling cookbook “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” atop a $400 six-burner gas stove is on the market for $3.5 million.
The Washington Post reports the 19th century home, built by African American carpenter Edgar Murphy on Olive Street NW, was bought by Child and her husband, Paul, in 1948. The yellow clapboard building is one of the few left in the once predominantly Black neighborhood that was originally owned by an African American.
Child, who died in 2004, worked on recipes there beginning in 1956, after she fell in love with French cooking thanks to a sojourn to Paris, where her husband was stationed for the US Information Agency. She also taught French cooking in the home to a group of women, according to the Post, after remolding the kitchen and installing a $400 Garland model 182 — a commercial gas range with a steel griddle.
Child and her husband moved out of the home in 1959, and it has gone through several renovations with the most work being done since it was purchased by Rory Veerers-Carter in 2015.
Then, the rotted-out floors had to be replaced with rustic white oak, and a spiral staircase that was installed in the 1960s was replaced with floating stairs using wood reclaimed from the house, according to the publication.
The modernized home features three bedrooms and four baths in four levels that include a finished basement.
Of course, in a home once owned by Julia Child, the magic happens in the kitchen, which features stainless steel Viking appliances, an eight-burner cooktop stove, double-stacked ovens, a wooden hearth, and a temperature-controlled wine fridge. It leads out to a patio area for al fresco dining.
But if you want to see that classic oven that Child worked over, you’ll have to head to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, to which she donated it in 2001.
[The Washington Post] — Vince DiMiceli