Burano

Burano at 1054 31st Street NW Unit 140 is a home goods and luxury lifestyle boutique in the Georgetown Harbour waterfront complex, at the 31st Street level that connects the M Street commercial district above to the canal and waterfront below. The name Burano references the Venetian island famous for its lace-making tradition and its brightly colored houses, and the boutique draws on this Italian craft and luxury heritage in the product selection it offers to the Georgetown residential and gift market.

The 31st Street unit in the Georgetown Harbour complex provides a commercial address in the waterfront development that serves both the Georgetown residential community who uses the 31st Street entrance to the waterfront and the visitor population who comes to the Georgetown waterfront from the C and O Canal towpath and the Georgetown Waterfront Park. The boutique format at this address, in the unit complex that also houses Cabada Contemporary and the other waterfront-level commercial tenants, offers the gift and home goods purchase option for the waterfront visitor who is browsing the canal-level commercial cluster.

The luxury home accessories that Burano carries, including the decorative objects, textiles, and the craft-influenced products that the Venetian reference suggests, serve the Georgetown gift market that the neighborhood’s affluent residential community and the tourist population generate. The Georgetown homeowner who is looking for the specific gift for the housewarming or the birthday, or who is refreshing the decorative objects in a Federal-period sitting room, is the customer that a luxury home goods boutique in this position serves.

Hours run Tuesday through Sunday. The Venetian reference in the Burano name connects the boutique to the craft tradition that the Italian island has maintained for centuries: the Burano lace, which is among the most labor-intensive decorative crafts in the European textile tradition, requires the specific hand technique that the island’s craftswomen have passed down across generations. A boutique that takes this name signals an interest in the craft object, the handmade product, and the European decorative tradition that the craft heritage represents. The Georgetown Harbour waterfront setting at 1054 31st Street provides the Burano boutique with a customer base that includes both the Georgetown residential community who visits the waterfront for the canal and park experience and the Georgetown commercial customer who uses the 31st Street entrance to the waterfront development. The gift and home accessories purchase at a boutique in this setting is a natural extension of the waterfront visit: the customer who has spent an afternoon at the Georgetown Waterfront Park or on the C and O Canal towpath passes through the 31st Street commercial unit on the way back to the M Street level. The decorative home accessories that Burano carries, including the textiles, the ceramic objects, and the specialty items that the boutique’s buying reflects, are appropriate to the Georgetown home market: the Federal-period and Victorian houses of the neighborhood have the specific aesthetic requirements that the decorative object serves. Hours run Tuesday through Sunday.