Millwork Metamorphoses!

By Beth Herman

With grand scale entertaining paramount for a Georgetown family of six, in many ways their late 19^th Century Queen Anne Victorian did not support a contemporary lifestyle. For interior designer Marika Meyer of Marika Meyer Interiors LLC, issues of storage and functionality were high on her design dance card for the historical residence while preserving its authentic fabric.

Gilded by antiques and spare, elegant furnishings, the home’s towering entryway lacked practicality with no place for guests to hang their coats during frequent social events. In an effort to retain and reproduce the home’s period flavor and flourishes, Meyer chose to create an adjacent coat closet by using custom millwork to replicate the original late 1800s entry door. Turning an empty vestibule into a utilitarian closet, the result appeared as though it had always been there.

“We transformed this space by matching the door’s historic millwork detail and creating a new (closet) door, so it was almost seamless,” Meyer said. “Most people think of millwork in terms of bookcases, but this was a good example of repurposing and reusing the space” without compromising the home’s architectural history.

In the imposing living room with its 13-foot ceilings, a lack of storage did not facilitate the family’s voracious reading habit. Calling it “somewhat unorthodox” to furnish a more formal space with bookcases, the designer explained the floorplan was such that the room was used on a day-to-day basis, rendering the idea of millwork in this manner more appropriate. Accordingly, Meyer created two bookcases to house many hundreds of books and family artifacts. In an effort to make the room more scalable and approachable, she dropped the bookcases’ height for the illusion of a warm and family-friendly area. Detail from the home’s existing entry hall wainscoting was reproduced in the living room, as was crown detail from the 19^th Century crown molding, along with custom ogee.

“The millwork here shows you can add depth and functionality, and also give the residence personality,” Meyer said. Though the room was painted in a more neutral palette from its former canary yellow, pops of color from the books and objects that line the book shelves brighten the space. “You can never underestimate the power of a good book installation!” Meyer quipped.

The new black

In a Logan Circle row house, a young family – also voracious readers, and the husband and father an author – desired additional storage and a way to showcase their many hundreds of books. What’s more, a singular art collection—and especially a prominent piece of art that occupied an entire wall—caused the room to appear off-balance. “The rest of the space just felt empty,” Meyer said, adding something was needed to carry the eye from a fireplace around the rest of the room.

To that end, and desiring some drama in the otherwise quiet space, the designer created a black, high-gloss finish bookcase. “Rather than white or a tint, the colors really pop off the black,” Meyer said of the books and displays. “You get a sense of movement, color and interest, but it’s also truly reflective of the clients and their love of reading.”

Because their collection of reading material was so extensive, books are actually double-stacked—two on each of seven shelves. With a 10-foot ceiling height, the designer again chose not to bring the millwork all the way up but to keep it on par with the cutout over the fireplace.

“Here it’s important to point out that custom millwork does not have to be cost-prohibitive,” Meyer said. Though the bookcase was customized and looks expensive, it was actually purchased from an unfinished furniture vendor and then spray-painted.

Here’s tinting at you

Also in Georgetown, a late 20^th Century row house suffered many of the constraints and design gaps that accompany newer construction. With virtually no architectural details and a bland palette (think neutral walls, sisal rug and sofa), and boasting a large piano that anchored one side of a room, Meyer said the challenge was to create a balance that would offset the weight of the piano, add height and grandeur, and strategically brighten the room.

On the piano side, the designer created an entire wall of the homeowner’s extensive collection of colorful antique world maps, along with colorful chair fabric. On the opposite wall, millwork provided the balance in the form of a floor-to-ceiling neutral bookcase, but with a tinted interior.

“A lot of the decorative objects the homeowner—who traveled extensively—had to fill the bookcase were also neutral in color,” Meyer said, “and if you were to place them against a similar backdrop, they’d be completely lost.” She added it would all also feel a little more ordinary or average, so tinting the millwork makes it feel “more intentional – tying everything together.”

When she wants to dress the millwork, the designer said she looks for objects and books in her client’s possession, whether hard cover or paperback, and groups them by hue for concentrated punches of color and a more powerful statement. “They are fun accents that really warm up the (neutral) space.”

Catalysts and cornices

In a mid-20^th Century Georgetown row house, a galley kitchen with no table space was judiciously transformed by custom millwork, including bead board, into a space that accommodated two banquettes. Comfortably seating four, cabinets and drawers provide for aesthetics and ample storage. According to Meyer, nooks and other small spaces should not be deterrents but rather catalysts for creative millwork.

In the same residence, a living room space, “contemporary and cold” and devoid of character, was badly in need of promotion. A large floor-to-ceiling window reiterated the room’s stark, contemporary feel. “There were no arches, no molding detail anywhere,” Meyer recalled.

To create a warm space and traditionalize the environment, decorous carved millwork arches with glass shelves and storage underneath, and extensive pilaster detail, were incorporated. A wood cornice was conceived to conceal harsh drapery hardware, all of it creating dimension and interest in an otherwise pedestrian room. “Every piece of molding was added to the home. Nothing was original,” Meyer said of the finished design, which included hallway wainscoting.

“From a real estate perspective, it just goes to show you what can be changed. You can transform contemporary spaces into traditional; you can push traditional into contemporary based on the elements you choose. You can use millwork for storage or to shorten a long, narrow space but still maintain a sense of functionality,” Meyer affirmed. “It’s all in the details.”

Your Next Place

By Franklin Schneider


This exhaustively renovated Logan Circle townhome presents a staid, traditional facade but inside it's as modern as they come. It still boasts many original details – the hardwood floors, for instance, were wisely retained – but check out the translucent glass wall partitioning off the staircase. It's the perfect balance of class and innovation, taste and hipness. Like Kim Kardashian except, you know, the complete opposite.

The all-white living room (iRoom?) features recessed lighting, high ceilings, and a gas fireplace, which is great. Don't get me wrong, there are few things more pleasant than a crackling wood fire, but every time I blow my nose after sitting by one the tissue looks like a coal miner's handkerchief. Can't be good for you. Right off the very fine kitchen (and completely separate from the formal dining area), the light-filled greenhouse-like breakfast atrium is one of my favorite spaces I've ever seen; if I had a place like this I would totally do more than just choke down a bowl of half-cooked oatmeal while standing up every morning. There are three roomy bedrooms, two up and one on the lower level, which is also where the family/media room is. I don't know why it seems so right to have the media room in the basement, but it just does. Maybe it's because you can blast the surround sound even at 3am without fear of disturbing your neighbors, or possibly I'm so deeply ashamed of my “Law and Order” addiction that it's more comforting to watch it underground, where passersby can't glance in the window and see my utterly shocked expression at the third act plot twist. (How do I still never see it coming?)

There's also a large garage and a rear courtyard that's straight out of the English countryside and wonderfully private. Located in Logan Circle, which – fact! - is doubling in hipness every 24 hours. You know it's the truth because I stuck that “fact!” interjection in there.

1514 Kingman Place NW
3 Bedrooms, 3 Baths
$1,349,000

EastBanc Prepping for 2012 Start in West End

Hoping to begin construction by this time next year, the joint venture EastBanc-W.D.C. Partners LLC - led by EastBanc and joined by The Warrenton Group, Dantes Partners, and LS Caldwell & Associates - will seek Zoning Commission approval on December 19th for its West End development site.

Though hope springs eternal for the development team, Joe Sternlieb, head of real estate acquisitions at EastBanc, knows that the potentially elusive 2012 start date depends on how long it takes to trudge though and pocket approvals from D.C.'s various commissions and committees, in this case Zoning, the Commission of Fine Arts, and DDOT's public space committee, among others - yet, the team is making strides, and although the design seems to change daily at this point in the process, Sternlieb remains optimistic.

With the CFA process begun, and DDOT in the future, the focus now is on Zoning's approval of the Planned Unit Development for Square 37, one of two West End sites being developed in conjunction by EastBanc. The other, Square 50, will be matter of right. The Square 37 property - fronting L Street between 23rd and 24th Street, NW - consists of three lots now holding the West End Library, a Police Operations facility and a surface parking lot. The site needs to be rezoned as Commercial Residential (CR) in order for developers to construct a mixed-use, 11-story building designed by architect Enrique Norten of TEN Arquitectos that will house a new West End Library, 7,617 s.f. of additional retail space which includes a corner cafe, and approximately 180 residences.

Zoning Commission approval of the plan (the PUD) and rezone request should be the easy part. Capitalizing on the West End site was the goal of the District, which issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for redevelopment (of both Square 37 and 50) in October of 2009. The city selected EastBanc in March of 2010; the winning developer beat out one other competitor thanks to asserting it would build both a new library and a new fire station without District subsidy. And in advance of EastBanc's PUD application filing, Victor Hoskins, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, sent the Commission a letter in support, highlighting that fact.

The entire project includes four District-owned sites at Square 37 and 50. The Square 50 portion (the other component not included in the Commission's review this month) includes the new West End fire station which will be topped with below-market rate residences, located at 2225 M Street, NW. Although both buildings at Square 37 and 50 are the vision of Enrique Norten, the project's architect of record is WDG Architecture.

District backing can only get the project so far, however. The development team will have to revisit the Commission of Fine Arts, after the CFA determined in its October 20th review that the library exterior needs a little "refinement," and suggested a "de–emphasis of supergraphics on the windows to support the clear architectural expression of the entrance."

The CFA also expressed concern about "building performance, such as the maintenance of the glass and metal skin of the building," and will have the chance to review another submission for the project in the near future. However, in a letter to Victor Hoskins, the "Commission commended the developer, DMPED, and the D.C. Public Library for their collaboration in supporting this distinctive design."

The entire Square 37 and 50 redevelopment project is part of Georgetown-based EastBanc's purported goal "to transform the once sleepy West End from a 'transitional zone' between Georgetown and Dupont Circle into a vibrant urban neighborhood with its own unique identity."

Washington D.C. real estate development news

New Design for Meridian Hill Baptist Church Residences

The contemporary design by Martinez + Johnson for the adaptive reuse of the Meridian Hill Baptist Church is no more, and stone will now replace glass due to an architectural re-skin requested by the Historic Preservation Review Board in September.

The 55-unit residential and historic preservation project is being developed through a partnership between the Church and developer Bozzuto. HPRB initially reviewed the project in July and the third review (of the new design seen here) will take place this month.

A light shade of stone is now being used (seen at top) to blend the front of the skinny side addition with the lighter limestone facade of the church, as opposed to the glass initially used to differentiate the addition (seen at left).

The new addition, an 8-story "L-shaped" residential building, will wrap around the back of the church and rise 80 feet, approximately 17 feet above the tip of the church's roof, in a shade of tan that is distinct from both the church and the facade of the side addition, but not dark enough to appear as a looming presence, as Bozzuto's Clark Wagner promised in advance of the development team's first trip to the HPRB.

This summer, Wagner expected the project to become a condominium with 55 to 60 units, all one- and two-bedrooms priced in the upper-$200,000 to low-$400,000 range, and up for sale next summer. The timeline is bound to be pushed back, however, with a trip to the Board of Zoning Adjustment necessary after HPRB approval.

The Meridian Hill Baptist Church at 3146 16th Street, NW, was one of a few structural victims of a five-alarm fire in March of 2008 that originated in the Deauville Apartments located across the church's back alley.

Redevelopment of the 14,700-s.f. property will include strict preservation of the Church's classical limestone edifice (constructed in 1927 by noted firm Porter & Lockie) - the desire to insert additional glass openings into the limestone facade was nixed by the HPRB in September.

Correction 12/2: New addition will be 80' tall (not 277')

Washington D.C. real estate development news

New Joint Venture Development Team for Braddock Gateway's Phase One

In a strategic move undisclosed early this

fall, Jaguar Development has sold Phase 1 of its Braddock Gateway development site in Alexandria, Va., to joint-venture partners Trammell Crow Company and Washington Real Estate Investment Trust. The land sale and development site closed on November 23rd, the partnership was announced by press release yesterday. The recently purchased one-acre development site of Phase 1, a 15-story, 270-unit apartment building, at 1219 First Street (First and Fayette Street), is only the first piece of a larger, 7-acre, five-phase Braddock development plan. 

The residential and retail building, designed by Rust | Orling Architecture, consists of a mix of studios, 1-bedroom, and 2-bedroom apartment units, and will vary in height from 50' to 150' - from 6 to 15 stories - with the tallest section being the central tower (the focus), which is flanked by "two lower shoulders," the eastern 6-story wing with pool deck, and the western 13-story wing. Phase 1 is now undergoing final site plan approval with the City of Alexandria, after preliminary site plan approval was given by the City this past September. After final approval, likely to come in the next half year, two years of construction will then begin in the fourth quarter 2012, developers expect. If all continues to go smoothly, the project - developed through TCC’s wholly-owned subsidiary High Street Residential - will deliver in 2016. 

Alexandria, Virginia real estate development news

A Place for Us

By Beth Herman

In a warm, welcoming Gaithersburg, Md. foyer, spirited prints by French Fauvist Raoul Dufy flank a stairway, a few feet away from an equally spirited drawing by the homeowner's child. With themes of sailboats, beaches and animals dominant both in Dufy's coveted portfolio and in the child’s unfiltered repertoire, at first glance distinguishing one from the other may be a challenge. But that’s precisely what Owner/ Principal Cindy Griffin of CMG Interiors had in mind when creating the livable, seamless, family-oriented space.

Having made interior design for growing, active families a special kind of niche, Griffin is an active mom herself whose website espouses the value of fruits and vegetables, snow, blowing leaves and beach sand in her life. Accordingly, she factors in ideas and objects from both her clients and their children when reimagining their residences.

“They have very busy lives running their households, their jobs, their kids’ lives, school, volunteer work—they may have little time to focus on updating or even initiating a room,” Griffin said of her clients, adding everyone, including kids, feels differently about a space.

Accordingly, the designer makes it a practice to ferret out existing items like art (children’s and other), keepsakes, travel mementos and additional elements the family has acquired and/or developed over time, often making them features or focal points of her renovations. What’s more, Griffin said “shifting, relocating, reusing and seeing things in a new light” is the key to an effective, family-friendly, transitional redesign of a space, as is an unhurried approach — or developing that space over a considerable period of time if appropriate. In a thought, families grow and change and so do spaces.

Keeping it close

In the Gaithersburg foyer, a late 1960s high gloss white metal hand rail is something many designers would have jettisoned, Griffin said. Electing to paint it a more classic dark bronze, the designer added an elegant old world-style chandelier, chest of drawers with a raw antique feel and rustic metal handles, lush, leafy plants and an organic color palette to a space that might have otherwise been overlooked. “We added photos of the children and left the wood stairs unpainted and without a rug,” Griffin said. The addition of the Dufy prints and parallel child’s artwork makes the space more of a vignette, she added.

In the family’s living room, Griffin used “layering” to enhance and organize the space. Relocating a piano and retaining the sofa, coffee table and rug, the designer created a concentrated seating area, dedicating the room’s perimeter to less utilitarian, less used and more decorative objects. “You need to have a cozy conversation group that’s easily reachable,” she said of the space’s center, framing and displaying more children’s artwork as a focal point. Because the living room is a northern exposure, Griffin used a golden color on the walls to warm it up, and made sure to include lighting in all four corners. “Lighting this way goes for any room to make it feel even,” she said.

In the designer’s own child’s room, also in Gaithersburg and created when he was 3 years old, cherished family pieces yielded a bright, personal, comfortable and comforting space. A handmade quilt from his grandmother that includes Depression-era fabrics, a lamp that was a wedding gift to his parents—replete with a hand stamped moose representing his favorite tome “If You Give a Moose a Muffin,” and an end table that was a second grade project containing artwork from the entire class punctuated and personalized the room. A mural of a large, lush, verdant tree, painted by Griffin herself, symbolizes the tree of life and its positive energy, and a framed self-portrait from kindergarten along with an image of the child with his grandfather in a homemade life-sized train created a very special environment.

Over time (Griffin’s son is now 15), and though he elected to preserve his mother’s cherished mural and a few other childhood elements, furnishings like a bean bag chair and objects like a world map, and brown and white artwork—which is paper he made from plants, glue and water— accommodated his maturing interests and studies (the paper won a blue ribbon at the Maryland County Fair).

“The room has grown with him,” said Griffin, though it continues to nurture, retains his true character and connects him to childhood and family.

“A lot of the clients I work with are every day families. It’s important to express their style, home and family through things they’ve inherited, bought themselves and brought together through their relationships. You want things to endure.”

District Releases Stevens School Development Solicitation

The District government has released a solicitation for developers to further develop the Stevens school, a historic landmark, in downtown DC / West End. The District is seeking developers to renovate and expand the historic school, built in 1868 to educate the children of freed slaves, making use of the adjacent empty lot. The DC government does not specify a use for the building, but does note that the ANC has expressed a strong statement of support for an educational institution - and the School Without Walls in particular - to take over the space in a manner "consistent with its African American heritage."

The Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School at 1050 21^st Street, NW, was closed by the Fenty administration during its school consolidation campaign, which issued a similar request for development proposals in late 2008, but later voided the winning bid. The District government selected apartment goliath Equity Residential as the winning bidder in 2009, but after 18 months of strong community opposition to its selection, the administration nixed the award and mothballed the building.

The school, "the first modern school in the District built for African-American students,” is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and even hosted First Child Amy Carter in the 1970's.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Mount Vernon Triangle's Critical Mass

Mount Vernon Triangle may soon be a bit crowded. The small neighborhood, tightly encircled by L'Enfant's avenues, has been struggling for years to develop a critical mass of development, a moment that may now be at hand.

If all the projects currently in the pipeline for the neighborhood are built, Mount Vernon Triangle will more than double its square footage of office space, add 1,570 apartments/condos and 380 hotel rooms, and increase retail offerings by 157,500 s.f. Despite its shortcomings - no Metro stop, convention center, or arena within its borders, it can claim close proximity to each, a fact that continues to fuel development.

Case in point: two new projects by The Wilkes Company and Quadrangle, with preliminary designs by Hartman-Cox, and targeting a 2012 start date for construction: 400 K (300,000 s.f. office space, 12,500 s.f. retail) and 300 K (500,000 s.f. office space, 25,000 s.f. retail - pictured at left). Both are part of the larger Mount Vernon Place development that started with a pair of condominiums. Two additional buildings by Wilkes and Quadrangle are also in the works for the area: 440 K (planned as a 234-unit apartment with ground-floor retail, but that could turn into office space) and 255 H Street, a 400-unit apartment building.

Numerous other large developers have projects on the boards - Steuart, MRP Realty, Bozzuto, The Donohoe Companies, Kettler, and Equity Residential - but few have pulled the trigger just yet, and Bill McLeod, executive director of the Mount Vernon Triangle Community Improvement District said those who don't take action soon, "will end up missing out." McLeod, who has been with the MVTCID - created by Mayoral Order in 2004 - for the past five years, added that investors have been paying attention to the area of late.

Equity also hopes to start construction next year on the 170-unit apartment and historic restoration project "Eye Street Lofts", originally a vision of local Walnut Street Development that was iced in 2007. Equity - the largest publicly traded owner and operator of multifamily apartment complexes in the U.S. - bought the land fully entitled a few months ago. Equity will go before the Board of Zoning Adjustment on December 13th. With the area designated as a historic district in 2001, the project received HPRB approval in 2006 (as pictured below) to restore two circa 1880, 3-story townhomes, a 2-story garage/ warehouse, and a small former blacksmith shop in the alley. The building currently leased by BicycleSPACE will be razed.

Nearly a decade after Mount Vernon Triangle was first targeted for redevelopment by the Office of Planning and ten major property owners in the area in 2002, existing apartments are 96-percent leased, condos are sold out, 230,000 s.f. of office space is leased at 455 Massachusetts Avenue and, notes McLeod, only the top floor of the 392,000-s.f. office at 425 Eye Street needs a tenant.

The Meridian, at 425 L Street, a 390-unit apartment developed by Steuart Investments and Paradigm, is now under construction. The topping out of the 14th (and final) story occurred this past September, the project will begin leasing soon and should complete by next June. Phase II of the project will be a 300-unit apartment located next door at 400 New York Avenue.

Next in the queue in Mount Vernon Triangle is Kettler's $80 million, 13-story, 233-unit apartment with 7,000 s.f. of street level retail at 450 K Street (pictured right), under construction next spring and delivering in 2014.

Of great interest to those invested in the area is the timeline of the K Street Streetscape Improvement, the contract of which is currently being finalized by DDOT. The 18- month infrastructure project should be underway early next year, said McLeod, resulting in a mid-2013 completion date.

The long-anticipated $9m reconstruction of K Street between 7th Street and 3rd Street will bring new paving, sidewalks, streetlights, and plantings. Streetcars are also in K Street's future, though the District's focus is currently on funding other legs first, i.e. the H Street Corridor.

Driving much of the current wave of development regionally is the gradually opening financing spigot and Washington D.C.'s perch on the top of the national real estate market. But Mt. Vernon Triangle has something else more rare in downtown DC: empty space. The Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) notes that only about 5 million s.f. of unbuilt space remains available downtown, 2.5m of that at CityCenter and 2m of that above the Center Leg Freeway. That leaves the equivalent of only a few office buildings that could be built downtown before growth has to expand outward, and Mt. Vernon is the nearest spot.

Yet if all projects currently in the pipeline are realized, Mount Vernon Triangle will max out its 600-room hotel capacity, reach 93-percent of its residential capacity (4,250 units), 87-percent of its office space capacity (3 million s.f.), and 84-percent of its retail space capacity (335,000 s.f.). Of the 380 hotel rooms planned for the area, 350 of them are contained in what was once one of the most talked about projects for the triangle, "The Arts at 5th and I" a mixed-use development on the corner of 5th and Eye Street, still considered a "top tier" priority by Mayor Gray.

Donohoe and Holland Development won the right to develop the site in September of 2008, but couldn’t finance the project (pictured below) in the face of the recession. This fall, Deputy Mayor Victor Hoskins visited the ANC with a scaled-back, 250,000-s.f. building with two side-by-side hotels, one a 150 room boutique hotel and the other a 200 room extended stay offering 350 rooms above 10,000 s.f. of street-level retail.

In April, it was announced that art in the form of the Liberty North Community Market would be coming soon to the site. The market arrived this fall, and with no plans to begin construction within the next year-and-a-half, the market's vendors have the 2012 growing season to get comfortable.

Donohoe has yet to visit the DC Council for approval its plan, which includes a 99-year ground lease from the District, something that may happen in the next "two to three months," said Jad Donohoe, after which 12 to 14 months will be taken to flesh out the design by Shalom Baranes, complete the construction documents, get permits, and secure financing.

Yet another project is less certain. It will require a 30,000-s.f. floorplate over I-395 between K and New York Avenue to build a 10-story, 1.7 million-square-foot Washington Global Trade Center with a sleek, open-clam-shell globe design (to the right), a development that has been proclaimed a long shot.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Reviving Hearts and Homes

By Beth Herman

In her warm, orange Bethesda, Md. family room, spirited puppets from a children's craft show perch and dazzle atop tiny swings. Supports for a fireplace mantel are made of old PVC pipes. Shovel people - originally intended as outdoor sculpture- burst from a red metal bucket, their hardware noses and lips and repurposed jewelry eyes (supplied by the designer when the original hardware fell off) surprising a quiet corner of the space.

 

For interior designer Lana Barth of Lana Barth Design, the art of the room comes from a different place and perspective than one might imagine. A former registered nurse, Barth grew up in a southern town so small there were no art courses or lessons available to anyone—even promising, passionate young students as she was.

“I always loved art but was never really encouraged,” Barth said of a dream so innate she may not even remember how it all began. “I grew up in a time when parents wanted kids to be practical. In college I wanted to go into nursing because it was quick—I could just get out and support myself.”

With her passion for all things art systematically exploding—much like a suppressed beach ball rocketing up from beneath the waves—in time Barth got another degree in fine arts and interior design. Conceding the exam for her design license was so challenging, it eclipsed her nursing boards, Barth said there are others like her out there who now defibrillate bland abodes instead of blocked arteries – though in some ways the feeling can be the same. “I know an anesthesiologist who is an artist now,” Barth said of a special community of health professionals who bring their healing skills to design.

For the designer, now firmly embracing her life’s true calling, turning rooms into art-filled statements has become an art in itself. Scouring crafts shows, augmenting furniture and recycling or repurposing objects such as bolts, copper tubing and PVC pipe into artful components has become a kind of niche passion, so to speak.

Of pachyderms and pyramids

Back in Barth’s family room, an old breakfast table was disassembled, its legs replaced by orange and blue circles and diamond shapes. “We couldn’t figure out how to make the circles,” Barth said, revealing that she and a “talented friend” eventually purchased lighting globes, painting them a dark blue like the chairs in the room. They were then glued and bolted to the underside of the top of the table, becoming a part of the base and resembling bowling balls.

In her dining room, Barth placed a seated mannequin affectionately named Gretchen in a corner of the space. Obtained from a Richmond, Va. store that once sold fixtures and items from defunct retail establishments, Barth said Gretchen sports clothing from the 1960s or ‘70s that belonged to the designer herself. The chair supporting Gretchen, created by Takoma Park, Md. artist Bodil Meleny, is itself an objet d’art with carved elephants flanking the seat. A mate with donkeys sits across the room, and the dining room table pedestal is made of corrugated metal drain pipe.

Referencing the room’s bright mixed media monoprint of a nude by artist Robert A. Nelson, Barth explained there is fruit—something edible—in the painting, so she’d deemed it appropriate for her dining space. The piece underneath, a “boring old oak table,” formerly in a laundry room, that belonged to Barth’s mother-in-law, was invigorated by the addition of actual wooden toes, also by artist Bodil Meleny. The edges of the table are fluted and resemble the body part, so the designer had them fully realized in its wooden appendages

At left in the room, a recycled length of PVC pipe became a pedestal, replete with wooden pediment and capitol, for art. A pyramid sculpture by Alexandria, Va. artist Larry Morris boasts a tiny figure on top, with a bubble over its head containing an image of a chair. “He’s just tired of sitting on that sharp point,” Barth quipped.

The more eyes see you

At a condominium in Rockville, Md., Barth was tasked with revving up an average and congested corner where the homeowner used her laptop. Spying her client’s scattered collection of Piero Fornasetti plates, wherein the 20^th Century artist had, among other things, created more than 350 with the facial features of 19^th Century soprano Lina Cavalieri, Barth lifted and hung the pieces from walls, decluttering the space and helping to animate the room.

Working sometimes with husband George Rothman, president and CEO of D.C. nonprofit Manna, which according to its website helps low and moderate-income residents acquire quality housing, Barth plies her singular craft (and art) as often as she can.

“A lot of the new homeowners are single mothers, and it’s nice for them to have a place where they feel comfortable raising their kids,” the designer said of her efforts to revive their environments. “I find all of it fun and good.”

Revealing that had she remained in her original profession, she’d have branched into psychiatric nursing, Barth said the specialty allows you to really understand how people think.

“I think you do the same thing in residential interior design,” she added, narrowing the divide between healthcare and habitat. “You have to get to know people to help them figure out what they really like.”

Your Next Place

By Franklin Schneider

You know how when you're dating, you meet a lot of people who are attractive enough, who don't have any glaring bad qualities, who aren't horrible but aren't great, and then one day you meet that person who's just perfect in every single way? I don't, I'm a hypercritical misanthrope with laughably high standards who's destined to die alone. But I've seen it happen on television tons of times!

Anyway, this is sort of how I felt when I saw this house. Plenty of places have a stunning facade, or a spectacular great room, or a state-of-the-art kitchen, but this place hit every single point on the checklist. Right off the bat, walking up the front walk through the landscaped yard and onto the wide front porch, I was taken in by the picturesque quaintness. And then you go in the front door and it's like someone is bludgeoning you in the face with a lead pipe of awesomeness. (Too much?)



A sweet classic fireplace and louvered ceilings makes for a striking living room; next is the huge, sunny formal dining room, and then through a set of french doors is a chef-caliber kitchen – one of the most well-appointed I've seen – with another, adjacent, dining area. Upstairs, the master bedroom is very spacious, with tons of built-in shelves (there are built-ins throughout this house – one of my favorite features), and a fine master bath. The other three bedrooms on the floor are also very generously proportioned. In the basement, there's a rec room, another full bath, laundry, and a kitchenette, in case you want to secretly break your diet in the middle of the night by baking yourself a chicken pot pie. (I've done it.)

Also! In back, across the expansive yard, is a separate freestanding sort of studio guesthouse, with a half-bath, that you could use as a mancave or an office or a writing studio. If I lived here, this is where I'd spend most of my time. (See what I mean about the misanthrope thing? I'm already planning how to emotionally withdraw from my nonexistent theoretical wife and family.) Like I was saying, this is the house that has it all! The only thing I didn't absolutely unconditionally love was the price, and that's only because I couldn't afford to buy it in full on the spot. (I'm more looking for a home in the one to three thousand dollar price range – all I've found so far is a stripped Kia Sportage on blocks. I'm waiting to hear back about my offer.)

3611 Lowell St. NW
6 Bedrooms, 4 Baths
$1,595,000

Looking Back, and Forward: 15th and V

After noting that the Jair Lynch Development Partners' 9-story, 95-unit apartment designed by WDG Architecture will be built at 2005 15th Street, NW, a reader felt the site's former life should be acknowledged. The new Jair Lynch apartment will rise up on what is now a surface parking lot next to the 10-story, 171-unit Campbell Heights Apartment at 2001 15th Street, but low and behold, the parking lot wasn't always there. In 1978, the Campbell

Heights Association constructed its eponymous apartment as subsidized, unassisted, one-bedroom apartments for senior citizens aged 62 and older. But first, the property on site had to be demolished. A grand Victorian structure stretching the entire block of 15th between U and V Street, built at the turn of the 20th century as "The Portner Flats," a high-end luxury apartment building offering 485 rooms (with baths!) and an entrance flanked by ornate Viennese-style sculptures. 

The Victorian was demolished in 1974, but it became famous first, in 1946, after it was sold by the Portner family and reopened as the Dunbar Hotel, Washington's leading elite black hotel. In the '50s and '60s, in the lobby of the Dunbar distinguished musical greats could be found - Duke Ellington, Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, Count Basie - cooling their heels after lighting up jazz dens strung along the U Street Corridor. "Before public accommodations were integrated in the nation’s capital, the Dunbar Hotel was the only major hotel where blacks could stay," wrote the Washington Times in 2009. However, when the District's other hotels did integrate, in the 1960s, the Dunbar fell into disrepair, was condemned, sold to the District in 1970, and razed in 1974. The Dunbar was named after Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African American poet born in the late-19th century who died before his time, in 1906; shortly after the Portner Flats were built, but long before the razzle-dazzle heyday of the U Street District that brought with it the short-lived glory that was the Dunbar Hotel. 

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Next Steps for New South Capitol Street Bridge

The District's forthcoming purchase of land needed in order to construct a new South Capitol Street/Frederick Douglass Bridge across the Anacostia has been aided by the dedication of $68 million in federal funds, with the next phase of development beginning by the end of the year.

Land acquisition followed by preliminary engineering for the bridge portion of the $806-million South Capitol Street Corridor project will be underway within the next month or two, confirmed the District Dept. of Transportation's program manager for the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative, James T. (Tom) Ryburn. The extension is part of the National Capital Planning Commission's vision to make South Capitol Street a "civic gateway," replacing the worn bridge with 6 traffic lanes and a bike path.






The Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), which selected a low-arched bridge design, was approved this summer (the picture at right is a stereotype). Ryburn cautioned that current designs are preliminary. "Everything is conceptual at this stage – there’s still a lot of design to be done."

The team plans to submit the initial financial plan in early 2012. Though it's been estimated that a budget of $806 million is required for the project, DDOT will be refining the cost figures in the preliminary engineering phase. And although federal funds will help with land acquisition, construction is currently unfunded, and the start date is entirely dependent on funding, as "[DDOT] Director Bellamy said on NBC," added Ryburn. "If we had the money, [there could be a new bridge in] six or seven years."

(Click to enlarge the plan to renovate the entire South Capitol Street Corridor)

Washington D.C. real estate development news