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Caps owner: Ovechkin doesn’t live in a gated community

Ovechkin House

A couple of weeks ago, the Washington Post published a lengthy story called “Alex Ovechkin: What’s wrong with the Washington Capitals superstar?”

The story, among other things, contained a paragraph that suggested Ovechkin had insulated himself from an increasingly critical public:

Ovechkin is behind a fence now. He’d lived in the same Arlington home since his rookie season, right off the street, visible to any fan who drove by. In January, he purchased a $4.2 million, 11,000-square foot home in McLean. It’s situated in a gated community, a barrier between himself — the guy who was the life of the party — and the rest of the world. Those who know him well say mounting criticism, mostly from hockey observers outside Washington, has affected him.

Today, however, Capitals owner Ted Leonsis admonished the Post’s reporting. Writing on his personal blog, Leonsis said he went to see Ovechkin’s house and it was nothing like the newspaper described.

Alex’s new home is in a normal neighborhood; you can drive by it – and park right in front of his home – like we did. There are no walls; no gates and no guards. It isn’t a gated community. He doesn’t even have a fence – there is a child’s out door playground located right next door that you see as you drive up to the home, in a neighbor’s home. Each neighboring home is quite close to Alex’s home. In fact – I hope he does get a fence and I told Alex last night – as Mark Twain once said – “Good fences make good neighbors”. That is great Americana.

Actually it was Robert Frost, not Twain. And Frost was describing the stubbornness of a neighbor who insisted on mending a fence between two properties even though a fence wasn’t necessary.

/smokes pipe
//makes it seem like I didn’t have to Google it

Anyway, I looked it up on Google Maps and it doesn’t look like it’s behind any gates.

(Note: Even though it’s all over the internet, we decided to kill the address, along with the map. He lives in Virginia though. In the United States.)