Washington Commanders owner Joshua Harris just bought the most expensive house in Washington, D.C. ever. Twenty-eight million dollars, and it’s no crypto fever dream, no offshore shell shuffle. Just a very old, very serious Georgetown mansion with a very modern price tag.
The house is Halcyon House, and if you live in D.C. you already know it, even if you don’t. It’s the kind of place people gesture at while jogging, then Google later. Built in 1786 and also in the National Register of Historic Places. This property is basically half an acre in Georgetown, which is almost like owning a beachfront property in a city where nothing is ever for sale.
This deal resets the market. The previous record was $25 million, paid by Howard Lutnick for Bret Baier’s former mansion, which tells you something about how rare these numbers are in a town that mostly pretends it doesn’t care about money. Harris just blew past that number without flinching.
The Halcyon House is enormous. Thirty thousand square feet. Twelve bedrooms. Twenty-two bathrooms. Yes, 22, that’s not a typo. You could get lost looking for a towel. There’s a pool with views across the city, and on a clear day you can see the Potomac, which is about as Washington as real estate gets. Power, history, and a good sightline.
The house was originally built for Benjamin Stoddert, the first secretary of the Navy. That alone makes it catnip for anyone who likes their wealth wrapped in legitimacy and legacy. It’s also had a $12 million restoration, carefully done, which matters when you’re dealing with historic preservation boards that can shut down renovations faster than a Senate filibuster.
For the last decade or so, this wasn’t a home at all. The seller, Sachiko Kuno, used it as the headquarters for a nonprofit accelerator focused on social-impact ventures. Entrepreneurs came and went. Ideas were pitched. History watched quietly from the walls. Kuno and her former husband bought the property in 2011 for $11 million, which now feels like a different geological era of pricing.
She called herself a steward of the house. That’s a very Georgetown word. It also worked out financially.
Harris plans to turn it back into a single-family residence. One family, many bathrooms. A spokesperson says he and his wife will still live mostly in Miami, which is a reminder that modern billionaires don’t really “move” anywhere. They accumulate locations. D.C. is now one of them.
This makes sense. Harris owns the Washington Commanders, which means he spends plenty of time in hookup-happy, optics-obsessed, rumor-prone Washington. Owning the city’s most expensive home sends a message without having to say anything at all. It’s quieter than buying a media company. Louder than buying a townhouse.
The brokers involved read like a who’s-who of D.C. luxury real estate, which is a very small and very discreet club. No TikTok tours here. Just phone calls, nods, and contracts that don’t leak until after they’re signed.
Zoom out and this isn’t just about one house. Washington has become a billionaire city, whether it admits it or not. Tech money, hedge fund money, private equity money. They all want proximity to power, even if they pretend it’s about history or architecture or “being closer to the team.”
Mark Zuckerberg. Jeff Bezos. Peter Thiel. Different industries, different politics, same instinct. Be close. Be visible. Be unavoidable.
What’s interesting is that D.C. still acts surprised when this happens. As if it isn’t the place where decisions are made, favors are traded, and futures get nudged in quiet rooms. Of course billionaires want homes here. Of course they want the biggest, oldest, most symbolic ones.
Harris didn’t buy just a house. He bought a signal. A very expensive one. One that says he’s not a visitor, even if his primary residence stays somewhere sunnier. This is a stake in the ground, literally and figuratively.
