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finished state. The Envoy eventually reopened as an apartment Tennessee Pink marble in the Promenade,” the firm said.
building rather than a condominium, but the penthouse The new facility’s lighting is similarly a modern take on the
structure remained frozen in its 1981 unfinished condition. Promenade’s mix of direct, indirect, and ornamental lighting
A 2014 amendment to the height act allowed penthouses to fixtures, while gold-toned accent tiles in the pilasters of the
be used as rentable or sellable space. “By this time,” according penthouse elevator lobby recall gold-painted patterns in the
to ECA, “the Envoy was feeling the competition of new [rental] Promenade’s arches.
buildings and renovations of existing ones, almost all of which In contrast, “the shell of the main lounge space was left in
had increasingly elaborate amenity suites.” In comparison, “the its raw state, more or less how it has looked since being gutted in
Envoy had nothing to offer, aside from the Promenade.” To the 1960s,” ECA said. “Raw brick and terra cotta walls, concrete
redress that situation, the Envoy’s owner hired ECA to convert joist ceilings, and exposed wiring contrast with refined modern
the penthouse into a modern amenity space, including a fitness furnishings and new tile floors.”
center, a lounge and party room, bathrooms, and new roof decks. Maintaining the raw character of that area “represented
The penthouse by that point was architecturally a dog’s a happy alignment of budget and aesthetic aspiration,” said
dinner—a dysfunctional mix of the original 1918 penthouse, Steven K. Dickens, AIA, LEED AP, an associate at ECA [who is
some 1960s-era work, and the 1980-81 project’s second level also a contributor to ARCHITECTUREDC]. “We particularly liked
and unfinished interior work. “There were ducts and electrical the idea of a very raw space in a penthouse: unexpected, and
lines that connected to nothing on either end, and mechanical indicative of the bizarre fact that the space had been abandoned
equipment which had never been turned on,” ECA said. for so many decades.” Visitors, he added, “absolutely do not
“Interior work at the former apartment had not started at all, and expect this expansive space, with such clean styling of the floor
the expansion spaces were enclosed, but remained raw space.” and furnishings, but such raw walls and ceilings.”
Demolishing the penthouse and starting over was an option, The facility’s dining, bar, television, game, and lounge areas
at least in theory, but working with the existing structure was are defined in part by the space’s columns and ceilings. The
deemed less expensive and had the advantage of preserving spaces added in the 1980-81 renovation, which included sloping
some of the penthouse’s 1918-, 1960s-, and 1980s-era features, all greenhouse windows, were finished off in a simple manner
of which could now be considered of historic value, particularly to become fitness centers. ECA’s interior work also included
in reflecting the building’s complex history over the last century. selecting the new facility’s furniture.
The existing penthouse’s structure, moreover, went right to the The project’s main exterior element is a new colonnaded
building’s edge, while a new penthouse would likely need to walkway that does double duty, leading occupants not only
be designed with a setback from the edge, which would have to the emergency roof-accessible stairways, but also to the
produced a fairly narrow structure, given the shape of the building’s impressive rooftop viewpoint, which affords vistas
building’s floorplate. of Meridian Hill Park and the city’s monumental core. The
In designing a new amenity facility for the penthouse, colonnade uses iron-spot brick that matches that of the existing
ECA faced three challenges. One was to give the facility proper building and incorporates some classical detailing to provide
emergency egress, which the architects met by re-inserting a visual interest. The penthouse’s exterior, the firm said, “was
modern version of the interior grand staircase that had been quite utilitarian, with none of the Beaux-Arts flourishes of the
eliminated in 1980-81, and by adding covered rooftop walkways building’s main facades.” Consequently, the new rooftop decks
to separate emergency stairways at the building’s edges. A were located not only to maximize the rooftop’s panoramic
second challenge was to lend some architectural order to a views, but also to minimize views of the inelegant penthouse
space that badly needed it. “The penthouse, interior and out, exterior itself.
was extremely irregular, [which was] partly a reflection of the A century after it was first built, the Envoy has now
various accretions and eliminations that happened over the “had some work done” that recalls the building’s past while
decades,” ECA said. “No two windows were alike, there were positioning it better for today’s rental market. “We’ve brought
constant shifts of ceiling height and wall plane, and other the Envoy into the 21st century, but instead of burying its
irregularities.” To address this, ECA organized its design around complicated history, we left a lot of clues,” Dickens said. “This
a regularized central circulation spine modeled after the engages users, and roots the modernism [of the new design]
Promenade, and then carefully fit the facility’s individual spaces into something deeper than the particular year that the project
into the structure’s remaining areas. The third challenge was to was realized.”
design the facility so that its new plumbing hookups would align An unusual challenge, he added, was that “over the
with the plumbing stacks of the occupied apartments below. decades, the penthouse had become somewhat romanticized.
The overall design goal was “to create a modern amenity Both its storied past and its abandonment were alluring in
suite, but also recall the various periods of the penthouse’s different ways. As much as tenants would appreciate having a
somewhat unusual history,” ECA said. In support of that goal, fitness room, roof deck, and lounge, there was a real risk that
the new facility’s lobby, circulation spaces, bathrooms, and re- the emotional reality of a renovation and re-occupation could
inserted stairway were designed as modernized versions of the disappoint. By weaving a lot of clues to the past with a dynamic
Promenade’s Beaux-Arts architecture. modernism of the present, however, I think we ensured that
“The basket-weave pattern of the [new facility’s] flooring very few visitors are disappointed.”
is a direct quotation from the Promenade, and the material—
limestone-look tile—is very much a modern version of the

54 ROOFTOP RENAISSANCE