Neighborhood in the News: Intelsat’s totally ’80s HQ, and the totally 1800s vineyard

When UDC was a vineyard: Remnants of farms remain scattered throughout the District, including a spring house that belonged to John Adlum, a contemporary of George Washington and a vintner whose lands included today’s UDC and North Cleveland Park. (Read more about Adlum here.) The Washington Post’s John Kelly spoke to the author of the new book, Lost Farms and Estates of Washington, D.C. (available at Politics and Prose).

The former Intelsat headquarters.

The ’80s take on the space age: The design of Intelsat’s former headquarters at 4000 Connecticut was considered provocative when it was built 35 years ago. The Post’s John Kelly, this time in his Answer Man disguise, fills in a questioner who wants to know more about the building and whether there will be tours (short answer: yes).

Triangle land, triangle land: WAMU set out to answer another question and raised a few more. Can someone build a house on one of those little triangular lots created by our diagonal roadways? And who owns them? In our area, it might be the developers who built out this neighborhood a century ago. This one, bounded by Nebraska and Nevada Avenues and Broad Branch Road, was purchased by neighbors and turned into a park and community garden.

Speaking of gardens: #10 on Washington.org’s “12 Inspiring Parks and Gardens in Washington, DC” is the Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens. Springtime is a marvelous time to visit, too.

How about yesterday's weather?! 🙌🏽☀️And @wethepeopledc captured it beautifully at Hillwood Museum & Gardens |||||> Next time you’re in the Van Ness area, you have to explore @hillwoodmuseum – its gardens are stunning. I loved the Japanese garden! Thank you @emma_mehrabi for modeling. #gardens #perfectweather

A post shared by Van Ness Main Street (@vannessmainst) on Apr 29, 2018 at 5:16am PDT

And while you’re at Hillwood: Pay a visit to the Russian art and artifacts collected by the Post Cereals heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post. PBS did – read more about “the largest comprehensive collection of Russian art outside of Russia itself.”

We were hoping to keep this to ourselves but: The Post has revealed the key to our plans for enjoying a relatively crowd-free Around the World Embassy tour this Saturday, and European Union Open House on May 12. One of the paper’s tips: Head to Van Ness, “which is slightly off the beaten path (compared with the cluster of embassies on Massachusetts Avenue, at least).”