Nancy Metzger · 2005 Honoree

By her own description, Nancy Metzger has been “an observer of Capitol Hill all my life.” As a girl she lived in rural Maryland but came to the Hill each Sunday to attend church. She remembers the trolley cars down the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue and aged veterans sunning themselves on the lawn of the Old Naval Hospital. But it was the houses with their towers and turrets, the streets and the brick sidewalks that particularly fascinated her.  That interest has grown into a serious contribution to the work of maintaining our neighborhood’s unique historic and aesthetic appeal.

As a member of the Historic Preservation Committee of the Capitol Hill Restoration Society, Nancy is one of the volunteer monitors who review plans for new construction and alterations to existing structures before they are considered by the Historic Preservation Review Board. As Nancy explains it the goal is “to allow people to adapt their homes to modern life but to maintain the historic context and compatibility with the surroundings.” The job depends on many hours of homework, long meetings and infinite tact on the part of members. Nancy has all of the above plus a bedrock knowledge of the neighborhood gained thirty years ago when she researched, wrote and self-published a little book called “Brick Walks and Iron Fences, Capitol Hill’s History, Architecture, Walking Tours.” It is still available at Riverby Books on East Capitol Street and at Capitol Hill Books near Eastern Market and is full of little-known information.

After growing up in the bucolic surroundings of the Plant Industry Station in Beltsville, where her father was a horticulturalist working on development of new varieties of plants, Nancy went to the little town of Athens, Ohio to study journalism at Ohio University. Her first job out of college brought her back to D.C. and an apartment in Georgetown where she loved living.  The differences between it and the Capitol Hill she remembered from her childhood Sundays got her thinking about urban design and how each place’s history had influenced the way it looked.  She fell in love with small city gardens and spent a year at North Carolina State University working towards a Master’s degree in landscape architecture.

But family life intervened. In 1974, at Christ Church, Nancy married Norman Metzger, a writer and editor specializing in scientific subjects, and moved into the house on E Street SE that he shared with his young son, Ben.  Three years later another son, Ted, was born. Ben, who served in the U.S. Navy and was a reporter for the Journal newspapers, died in 1993. Ted has graduated from college and is living on the Hill.

It was during her early years of mothering that Nancy researched and wrote her book and took on a number of volunteer activities. She served as the representative of Christ Church on the Boards of Capitol Hill Group Ministry and of the Day School. Ten years ago, when a group of women associated with the Capitol Hill Art League put together a book of photographs of the neighborhood, “Capitol Hill: Beyond the Monuments,” Nancy was the vital team member who kept track of all the photographs that were submitted and maintained contact with the photographers.  She currently works with the Ruth Ann Overbeck Oral History project as an interviewer and as a member of the steering committee.

Nancy and Norman moved nine years ago to a house around the corner from their first home and they have there a magical garden. Offering Nancy “all the space I can deal with,” it is quite narrow but one hundred feet deep. Like the Hill itself, it is full of surprises.