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Dining, billiards, and lounge areas. Diaphanous curtains can be
pulled to separate the dining area from the rest of the space.

Imagine an aging movie star concerned about fading looks fashionable residential district. Her efforts inspired considerable
who “has some work done” to help hold off competition from results, including Meridian Hill Park and a number of embassies
younger actors, and you can start to get a sense of what the and grand residential structures, among them the Envoy at the
architectural firm of Eric Colbert & Associates (ECA) has corner of 16th Street and Crescent Place, NW.
recently done for the Envoy, a historic apartment building at Initially called the Meridian, the building’s name was
2400 16th Street, NW, directly across the street from Meridian modified to Meridian Mansions or Meridian Mansions Hotel
Hill Park. But to fully understand ECA’s work at the Envoy, in the 1920s and early 1930s, when it was one of Washington’s
which entailed more than simple cosmetic changes, it’s best residential “best addresses,” with tenants including
to rewind the movie reel of the building’s history back to its ambassadors (i.e., envoys) and Members of Congress. It was
beginnings a century ago, during the silent movie era. renamed Hotel 2400 in 1935, and redubbed the Envoy Towers—
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Mary Foote Henderson, or simply the Envoy—in 1965.
the wife of former U.S. senator John Brooks Henderson,
campaigned assiduously to transform the area surrounding
the couple’s solitary, castle-like house on 16th Street, north of
what is now Florida Avenue, from a semi-rural landscape into a

Project: The Envoy Penthouse,
2400 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC
Architects/Interior Designers: Eric Colbert & Associates PC
Structural Engineers: Ehlert-Bryan Consulting Structural Engineers
MEP/FP Engineers: Dwyer Engineering
Specifications Consultant: Rosa D. Cheney, AIA
Furniture, Fixture & Equipment Procurement: Millennium Procurement
Owner’s Representative: Urban Systems
General Contractor: Donohoe Construction Company
The penthouse is invisible from Meridian Hill Park.

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