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Amped Up
Amped Up

Historic Restoration and Addition

Offer Innovative Urban Living

by G. Martin Moeller, Jr., Assoc. AIA

The Ampeer Dupont Circle, consisting of the renovated Patterson House at left and the new addition at right.
When completed in 1903, the Patterson House overlooking flourishing upper-class social life around the turn of the 20th
Dupont Circle was emblematic of Gilded Age Washington. With century. After Robert’s death in 1910, the mansion passed to his
its ample foyer, majestic main staircase, and opulent ballroom, the daughter, Eleanor “Cissy” Patterson, who went on to become editor
house was as much an entertainment venue as a private residence. and publisher of the Washington Times-Herald. Fiery and scandal
The mansion’s architect, Stanford White, of McKim, Mead & prone, Cissy was herself often the subject of sensational news
White, regularly designed for—and socialized with—some of the stories, such as when her estranged husband, a Polish count,
richest families in America. kidnapped their child. When Cissy died in 1948, she bequeathed
The client, Robert Wilson Patterson, Jr., was editor-in-chief of the mansion to the American Red Cross, which later sold it to the
the Chicago Tribune and president of the newspaper’s parent company. Washington Club, a women’s social organization.
He was one of the numerous prominent businessmen who Faced with an aging membership, the Washington Club put
commissioned houses in Washington in order to enjoy the city’s the building up for sale in 2014. Preservationists worried that a

28 AMPED UP