At the corner of King George Street in Annapolis’s National Historic Landmark District sits a three-story Dutch Colonial that has quietly become one of the capital city’s most talked-about restorations. The Paul Prager House — a 1905 residence transformed through a multi-million-dollar renovation — represents a particular kind of ambition: bringing a century-old home fully into the modern era without erasing what made it worth saving in the first place.
Who Is Paul Prager?
Paul Prager isn’t a household name, but in Maryland’s Eastern Shore business circles, he carries significant weight. A Brooklyn native and U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Prager has spent decades building Beowulf Electricity & Data Inc., a private energy and digital infrastructure company he founded in 1990. He also serves as co-founder, chairman, and CEO of TeraWulf Inc., a publicly traded infrastructure company focused on energy assets for high-performance computing, headquartered at 9 Federal Street in Easton, Maryland.
His path to real estate restoration started with something more personal. After rekindling his connection to the Eastern Shore — first through his Academy years in nearby Annapolis, then through weekend trips with his wife Joanne and their family — Prager began investing in the historic town of Easton, purchasing and restoring storefronts along Federal Street that now house restaurants, a yoga studio, a cold-pressed juice bar, and a specialty coffee shop pouring La Colombe roasts. That portfolio has grown to include Bas Rouge, an upscale European restaurant with a 500-bottle wine list, and The Stewart, a whisky bar modeled after a Scottish Highlands tavern with over 117 single malts behind the bar.
The Annapolis home represents a different chapter — a private residence restored with the same meticulous attention Prager brings to his commercial projects.
The House and Its Setting
The Paul Prager House occupies a prime position on King George Street within the National Historic Landmark District, a designation the neighborhood has held since 1965. The area includes some of Annapolis’s most significant architecture: the William Paca House and the Hammond-Harwood House, both 18th-century landmarks, sit nearby and anchor the district’s historical identity.
The home was reportedly built in 1905 by Anne Jeffers, Maryland’s first female State Librarian and the daughter of Commander Nicholson Jeffers III, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate. It originally operated as a boarding establishment before converting to a single-family residence — a common trajectory for Annapolis homes of that era, as the city’s residential needs shifted over the decades.
Prager acquired the property in 2017 and committed to a restoration that would honor the building’s historical character while making it genuinely livable by contemporary standards.
Dutch Colonial Architecture Done Right
The Paul Prager House is a clear example of Dutch Colonial architecture, identifiable by its gambrel roof with flared eaves — the defining visual signature of the style. Originally constructed as a two-and-a-half-story structure, early modifications expanded it to three stories, adding square footage without disrupting the proportions that give the home its character.
The exterior tells the restoration story in materials alone. A Buckingham slate roof has been returned to its original specifications. Red brick entrance steps lead up to a dark gray wooden door framed by sidelights and transom lights, flanked by black wrought-iron railings. These aren’t decorative afterthoughts — they’re the period-appropriate details that separate a genuine restoration from a cosmetic refresh.
Architect Greg Wiedemann oversaw the project alongside Winchester Construction, working under strict historic preservation guidelines. The mandate was straightforward: make it function like a 21st-century home without compromising the bones that make it worth preserving.
What the Interior Looks Like
The first thing you notice inside is the stairway. A custom three-floor cantilevered design with a mahogany handrail, it serves as the architectural spine of the house. Embedded in the banister is a Naval Academy insignia medallion — a small detail that ties the home to its Annapolis setting and to Prager’s own history.
White oak floors flow through the main living areas, providing a warm foundation that works with both period furnishings and more contemporary pieces. The original windows and trim have been restored rather than replaced, preserving the kind of craftsmanship that modern manufacturing struggles to replicate.
The kitchen got the most dramatic overhaul. The rear southwest room has been converted into a bright, functional space with navy-blue cabinetry — a color choice that subtly nods to the maritime culture embedded in Annapolis’s identity. Antique lighting fixtures throughout the home maintain period authenticity without sacrificing the illumination levels a modern household expects.
French doors in the main living areas open onto a private brick patio, creating a natural transition between indoor and outdoor spaces. A second-floor balcony accessible from the family room extends the living area upward and offers views across the historic streetscape.
Interior designer Shaun Jackson worked with Prager to curate the spaces, integrating personal collections — original posters, military memorabilia, maritime artwork — without letting them overwhelm the architecture. The result feels personal rather than staged, more like a home that’s been thoughtfully assembled over time than one decorated all at once.
The Outdoor Spaces
The grounds follow the cloistered garden traditions common to early 20th-century Annapolis residences. The brick patio off the kitchen provides an enclosed dining and lounging area, screened by landscaping that ensures privacy without creating the feel of a fortress.
Plantings reflect a practical mix of period-appropriate choices and low-maintenance sensibility — a reasonable balance for a property that serves as a home first. The second-floor balcony acts as an outdoor extension of the family room, offering a vantage point that connects the interior to the surrounding neighborhood in a way that ground-level patios can’t.
These outdoor areas accommodate everything from a quiet morning coffee to a larger social gathering, giving the property flexibility that many historic homes lack.
What It’s Worth
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Year Built | 1905 |
| Original Builder | Anne Jeffers |
| Current Owner | Paul Prager (purchased 2017) |
| Estimated Value | $3–4 Million |
| Comparable District Properties | $2–5 Million |
| Property Type | Historic Dutch Colonial |
| Stories | Three |
| Roof | Restored Buckingham slate |
| Primary Flooring | White oak |
[VERIFY: needs live source check] — Exact square footage and lot dimensions have not been publicly disclosed.
Historic homes in the National Historic Landmark District consistently command a premium over Annapolis’s broader residential market. The quality of this particular restoration — the architect, the construction team, the materials — places the Paul Prager House at the upper end of the local range. Properties with this level of craftsmanship and provenance in a protected historic district tend to appreciate more steadily than comparable homes outside the zone, driven by limited inventory and sustained demand from buyers drawn to architectural character.
Prager’s Wider Property Portfolio
The Annapolis home is part of a broader collection that reveals how Prager approaches real estate: acquire significant properties, invest in their long-term value, and tie the results back to community benefit.
Maiden Point Farm
A large estate on the Miles River, roughly fifteen minutes from Easton, featuring a Tidewater Colonial main residence, guest cottages, and additional outbuildings. This is where Prager’s family spends weekends and holidays — the property that originally pulled him back to the Eastern Shore.
Federal Street, Easton
Prager now owns an estimated 40% of the storefronts in this small 18th-century town. His holdings include multiple restaurants, Sunflowers and Greens (a salad bar featuring premium ingredients like blackened ahi tuna and rare prime tenderloin), Bumble Bee Juice, Weather Gage coffee, and Blue Mat Yoga — many of them born from his family’s own requests. A gourmet market and a pie-and-ice-cream shop are in development, with a theater and jazz club potentially following.
Eastern Shore Farmland
Additional agricultural holdings across the region support land conservation and sustainable farming, investments that complement his commercial and residential properties.
His philanthropy runs parallel to his real estate work: contributions to land conservancy, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, the local historical society, and various schools reflect a long-term commitment to the Eastern Shore that goes beyond financial returns. As Prager himself has put it, the goal is “highlighting the area’s history, beauty and native artistry while enhancing the sense of community”.
What Makes This Property Matter
The Paul Prager House isn’t just a wealthy businessman’s address. It’s a working example of what thoughtful historic preservation actually looks like — the kind of project where period authenticity and modern comfort coexist without either one compromising the other.
The gambrel roof, the slate shingles, the mahogany handrail, the original windows — these elements survive because someone chose to invest in their survival rather than replace them with something easier. For Annapolis, a city whose identity is inseparable from its architecture, projects like this set a standard that matters beyond any single property line.
The home at King George Street has been standing for over a century. With the work Prager and his team have put into it, there’s every reason to believe it’ll stand for a century more.
