Page 53 - Fall 2019

The renovated Patterson House at left,
Photo © Anice Hoachlander/
with new addition at right. Hoachlander Davis Photography
Chapter Design Award in Historic
Resources/Preservation
Patterson House
Washington, DC
Hartman-Cox Architects
Interior Designers: Darryl Carter Inc.; Rockwell Group;
Photo © Gordon Beall
Maurice Walters Architect, Inc.
Landscape Architects: Lee & Associates
Structural Engineers: Thornton Tomasetti
MEP/Fire Protection Engineers: WSP
Civil Engineers: VIKA Capitol
Contractor: Manhattan Construction Company
The ornately grand historic mansions of Washington’s Dupont Circle
neighborhood are beautiful to look at, but can pose challenges in
terms of finding uses that both respect their historic architecture
and are cost effective. Hartman-Cox Architects managed to thread
the needle with its design for renovating and adding to Patterson
House, a lovely Beaux Arts-style mansion on Dupont Circle that
was built in 1903. The building, which is listed in both the DC
Inventory of Historic Sites and the National Register of Historic
Places, was used in recent decades by a women’s club.
Another example of adaptive re-use, the project carefully
restored the decorative details and surfaces of the historic mansion
and added a modern residential tower behind it to create a residential
development with 92 small rental apartments and several
shared amenity spaces. The clean-lined new residential tower
“is sympathetic but clearly differentiated from the original house.
Its white color, the window proportions, and marble panels all
reference the historic building,” the firm said. A glass-clad
“hyphen” sensitively connects the mansion to the new tower.
The project demonstrates how smart design can preserve
an older building while giving it a new use—and how modern
design can complement and help showcase a historic structure.
The project was previously covered in the Fall 2018 issue
of ARCHITECTUREDC.
Photo © Gordon Beall STRENGTH IN NUMBERS 51