Currently 403 R Street NW is occupied and not as it is pictured below. I add photos from DCRA (or whatever DC government agency has these) from 2004 so one has an idea of what the houses look like. Most of the time, the house has not changed much from 1920, the year of the census from which I pull the names of the Black home owner for this series. For a current view of the place look here.
In 1920 Lewis Griffin, a Black American dyer and cleaner, lived at 403 R St NW with his wife Maude, nephew Edward Brooks, and a married couple rooming with them.
Lewis Griffin was born July 9, 1884 in Orange county Virginia to John Griffin and Susan Rose. In 1910 he was living with relatives at 63 Pierce Street (NW?) working as a hotel worker. Also that year he married Maude Lightfoot May 25, 1910. The Griffins were living at 403 R St NW around WWI. Maude died June 6, 1926. Lewis Griffin died June 5, 1958.
Looking at the land records, not a lot happens between 1933 and 1954. But there is a whole lot a paper drama in the 21st century, which I won’t touch, but let’s just say family let it sit (and decay) for a long, long, long, long time.
Lewis Griffin had two daughters named in the land records. Frances G. Jones (1922-2004) and Dorothy Farr (?1926-2018?). According to an Ancestry family tree he had a son (John Griffin 1915-1973), but no proof he actually existed. I have come across various family trees that do not have siblings listed. The Social Security Death Index has Mrs. Jones dying in 2004, but her signature appears on a 2014 document selling the property to RDC Designs LLC. I’m not going to investigate if there was an error.