the doors of alexandria

On August 18, 1967, local-boy-who-made-it-big James Douglas Morrison returned to the town where he graduated from high school for his first and only appearance in Alexandria with his band The Doors. The Doors played a double bill in Annapolis at 7:30, and at 10:00 PM at the Alexandria Roller Rink Arena, which since 1948 had sat at 805 N. Saint Asaph St. in Old Town, with a few thousand in attendance to hear their number one hit, Light My Fire. The show was promoted by WPGC DJ Jack Alix’s Flower Power Show. The Roller Rink was no stranger to rock and roll; Janis Joplin and Jethro Tull also played there. On this particular night The Doors were the draw, but the radio host also had a contest for local bands as part of the bill.

Jim Morrison spent his youth in several states, including California and Florida, but a significant portion was in the suburbs of Washington DC, where his father, Navy Rear Admiral Stephen Morrison, his mother Clara, and Jim and his younger siblings Andrew and Anne lived in proximity to the Admiral’s employment at the Pentagon. 

One of their houses, 2320 N. Evergreen St. in Arlington, is right across Lee Highway from where I used to live, tucked behind the Wendy’s I frequented. It is a pleasant Cape Cod design and said to have been heavily modified by subsequent owners. The four-bedroom, three-bath home was built in 1947 and it sold for $899k in 2014 and is said to now be worth $1.27 million.

Another Arlington address is 4907 North 28th St., a modest-looking brick house built in 1951 that is now estimated to be worth just over $1 million and is situated a few blocks north of the Evergreen St. address. Morrison is said to have returned to visit this house in the late 1960s.

I found a single reference with no backup for 6913 Jefferson Ave. in Falls Church, a three-bedroom, two bath house built in 1943 that seems honestly too modest for a family of five.

The Morrison family was based at 310 Woodland Terrace in the Jefferson Park neighborhood in northwest Alexandria from 1959 to 1961, when Jim attended George Washington High School from partway through his sophomore year until graduation. (That school, located at 1005 Mount Vernon Ave., about a mile from the home, is now a middle school.) This 4,645-sf house, built in 1940 and currently valued at $1.7-$1.9 million, is a stately stone colonial on a corner lot and is said to have been renovated in 1992. It now boasts five bedrooms and seven (!) bathrooms.

After Jim left home, his parents lived at 1327 S. Glebe Road, to the east in Arlington. The house was built in 1969 so they were likely the first owners. The modest looking four-bedroom, 3.5-bath house is said to have been updated, and it sold for $821k in 2021. 

Getting back to August 18, 1967: The Doors were literally top of the pops. And two of Jim’s mother’s sisters surreptitiously attended the concert, according to a 1969 article by Michael Horowitz in Crawdaddy Magazine. “While they enjoyed it all right,” reports a neighbor, “they just couldn’t believe Jim was the same little blond-haired boy they used to know.” The houses where he lived remain, but the roller rink closed in 1986 and is now the site of a Sheraton Suites hotel.

References: 

https://boundarystones.weta.org/2013/06/10/jim-morrisons-not-so-happy-homecoming

https://bigwigdigs.com/homes/jim-morrison/167

https://newdoorstalk.proboards.com/thread/1597/morrison-mirage-crawdaddy-april-1969

https://forgottenrollerrinksofthepast.com/Alexandria%20VA.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2013/06/20/the-night-the-doors-tore-it-up-at-the-alexandria-roller-rink/