Will TomKat and baby Suri be Washingtonians?

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes sure must have been enamored with the Washington area when he announced a moviemaking partnership with Redskins owner Dan Snyder just weeks ago. Sources tell us that the pair is putting the final ink on a contract for a $22 million behemoth of a home in Upperville, Va.

The property is listed through Armfield, Miller & Ripley Fine Properties in Middleburg. Its Web site reveals that the 1,100-acre Loudoun County property is “available for only the second time in 75 years” and “amenities include a variety of barns, ancillary residences, seven ponds, a training track, orchard and lovely formal gardens.”

The Web site indicates that it is “under contract.” Agent Anita Sisney would not comment directly on the sale, or on the identity of the buyer. When we asked if she could confirm the sale, she said, “The buyer would like to keep his privacy, and it’s not going to come from me.”

The tract of land, described by one source as the “biggest property ever” has quite a pedigree. It was originally owned by the family of famous Washington-based landscape painter and Civil War veteran Lucien Whiting Powell.

According to a Sept. 27, 1930, obituary from the Evening Star newspaper, posted on the Arlingtoncemetery.net Web site, “the Llandgollen [sic] estate at Upperville, Virginia, was granted to the family by the King of England about 1770. There in the historic hunting region, the Powells entertained George Washington and Lafayette on the 10,000 acre estate. The artist’s uncle, Cuthbert Powell, made it his home for many years, and today the house which Washington and Lafayette knew stands on 1,000 acres of the original tract.”

The Whiting family later sold it to John Hay Whitney, the grandson of Secretary of State John Hay, who bought it for his competitive equestrian wife. Llangollen Farm, part of the original property, is now a functioning, sustainable cattle farm. When asked if the farm was for sale, a man who answered the phone at the farm said he was “not allowed to talk” about it.

Should they make it their primary residence, TomKat would join Robert Duvall among A-list actors in Virginia’s horse country.

Obama: Not hot for Harvard

Apparently, there’s only one place on Earth where Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., isn’t beautiful: Harvard University.

The debut issue of 02138 magazine — taking its name from the campus ZIP code — explores “the world of Harvard.”

The central feature is the “Harvard 100” list of the most influential alumni. Each is accorded icons to represent their various attributes, among them “hottie.”

Yet there at No. 50 is Obama, sans “hottie” icon. In fact, only Chief Justice John Roberts (No. 5) and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. (No. 11) are beautiful enough to make the cut. (But how can we argue? The editors are from Harvard!)

Hot or not, about 17 alums with D.C. ties make the grade. After Bill Gates at No. 1, we see President George W. Bush (No. 2), Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke (No. 3), Justice Anthony Kennedy (No. 4), Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. (No. 16), Ashoka CEO Bill Drayton (No. 33), Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist (No. 40) and Time.com’s Andrew Sullivan (No. 53), to name a few.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. (No. 60) might run for president, but can the public overcome his past animal experimentation? According to 02138, Frist’s name gets 977 hits with a Google search for “cat assassin.”

The magazine is being mailed to 50,000 alumni, most of whom are surely insufferable to the rest of us.

So who’s responsible for this? Not surprisingly it’s being bankrolled by Washington’s own David Bradley, founder of the Atlantic Media Co., and a Harvard man himself.

The clothes make the Manfacto

He travels frequently to his native Italy. He’s as connected as they get in this city. And he’s always nattily dressed.

So it stands to reason that Franco Nuschese, impresario of Café Milano in Georgetown would throw himself into a new line of business — custom-tailored men’s clothing with fabrics from Italy.

Called Manfacto, the business, which has been in development for roughly eight months, will be run out of Milano’s executive offices.

Nuschese was traveling Tuesday, but we caught up with his countryman and business partner, Michele Contrini, who told us that office space may not be the only synergy with the movers’ and shakers’ favorite restaurant. “Through Café Milano, we’ll have the right customer base,” he said.

So what can the well-dressed Georgetowner expect? Contrini said to watch for trunk shows at least twice a season for three days at Milano “to show the new styles,” all under the supervision of tailors from Italy.

As for the name, Contrini said it’s an adaptation of the Latin phrase for “handmade.”

Now all Nuschese needs to do is add jewelry and cars for a one-stop luxury shopping empire on Prospect Street.

Dude, where’s my vote?

Marijuana advocacy group NORML put its congressional rankings online this week, providing voters with an easy way to find out which representatives are voting to pass the grass.

“The West is the best,” says NORML’s Executive Director Allen F. St. Pierre, citing the seven representatives in California, Oregon and Washington state who earned a perfect score of 30 on NORML’s ranking of pot-friendly lawmakers. But don’t overlook the Northeast, where five Massachusetts congressmen also earned a 30.

NORML’s got little love for Oklahoma — “I don’t think we had anyone who tested well out of Oklahoma” — or Mark Souder, R-Ind. “They’re the drug warriors,” St. Pierre says, whipping out possibly the most offensive term peaceful marijuana advocates are capable of conjuring up.

But does NORML have a nickname for their allies on Capitol Hill? “No,” St. Pierre says. “No pet names for them. They’re just friends.”

Far out.

Speakeasy

“Hell, I would have drug him out of the House by his tie and thrown him out of the place.” – House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, on what he’d have done had he known about former Rep. Mark Foley’s instant messages with congressional pages

Kelly Mahon contributed to this page.