Page 54 - ArchDC_Winter 2019

Interior of the penthouse
before renovation. Courtesy of Eric Colbert & Associates
Designed in the Italian Renaissance style and built between
1916 and 1918, with terra cotta and limestone facing, the seven-
story (plus basement) building consists of four parallel wings
connected by a spine running down their middle, producing
a double-H floor plan. The building was originally topped
by two open-air, Beaux-Arts-styled summer pavilions on
its 16th Street façade, and another two on its Crescent Place
façade. The prominent pavilions, which resembled bell towers,
were removed along with an associated roof deck as part of
a reroofing project in the early 1960s, giving the building its
current less-ornate, flat-topped appearance. Today, the Envoy’s
most eye-catching exterior features are its formidable ranks of
partially inset, stone-bracketed balconies. Media area.
Following the reroofing project, the Envoy’s fortunes
declined, and by the mid-1970s it was dilapidated and largely
empty. In a bid to reverse that situation, the building underwent
a major renovation in 1980-81 that was intended to convert it
into a condominium. The project restored the building’s grand,
marble-clad lobby, known as the Promenade, to its original
1917 appearance, but otherwise completely reconfigured
the building’s interior, eliminating its other historic interior
features. Two years later, in 1983, the building was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places.
The building as completed in 1918 also featured a nine-room,
3,500-square-foot penthouse apartment that was permitted as
an exception to DC’s Height of Buildings Act of 1910 (under
the original terms of that law, penthouses could be used only
for mechanical equipment and services). The exception was
granted because the apartment was located toward the rear of
the building and consequently wasn’t visible from 16th Street.
The apartment was used as a residence until 1944-45, when the
exception came under legal challenge. The dispute was resolved
by a 1952 law that permitted the penthouse structure to be used
as something other than private living quarters.
The penthouse’s interiors were gutted as part of the 1960s
re-roofing project. The 1980-81 renovation then added a small
second level to the penthouse while removing a grand staircase
that had connected the penthouse to the first-floor lobby. The
plan at that time was to convert the penthouse into a social
and amenity space. A sharp spike in mortgage rates, however,
undermined the condominium market, and work on the
penthouse was abruptly halted, leaving its interior in a partially Circulation spine through the amenity space.

52 ROOFTOP RENAISSANCE