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Project: Studio Acting Conservatory,
3423 Holmead Place, NW, Washington, DC
Architect of Record: Jon Hensley Architects
Design Collaborators: Debra Booth, Robert Sponseller, FAIA,
and Ron Henderson, FASLA
Landscape Architect: LIRIO Landscape Architecture
Structural Engineer: Linton Engineering, LLC
MEP Engineer: MEP 4Permits
Civil Engineer: Greening Urban, LLC
The Last Supper Artist: Akili Ron Anderson
Demolition Contractor: Haigh DeCastro LLC
General Contractor: Infinity Building Services, Inc. The Last Supper sculpture,
uncovered during the renovation. Photo © Joe Graf

In the middle of an otherwise typical residential block in DC’s by traditional red Scandinavian barns that she and Booth had
Columbia Heights neighborhood stands a humble gabled façade, researched. “They often had completely flat façades with a
stripped of almost all ornament, improbably painted bright recessed square opening in them,” she said. “The form is an
red, with a recessed entry portal reached by a minimalist black abstraction, in the same way that plays abstract from life.”
metal staircase that springs from a small forecourt. Above the The renovated interior includes four studio classrooms,
gable is a simple steeple, normally suggestive of an ecclesiastical an office, and lounges for students and teachers. Each studio
use, but here painted a decidedly secular-looking gray. The has wingwalls on the upstage side, reflecting the fact that
structure looks like a stage set, and that is appropriate, since this actors do “a lot of entering and exiting during rehearsals and
is the new home of the Studio Acting Conservatory, which trains performances,” according to Jon Hensley, AIA, LEED AP.
budding actors and directors for careers in theater and film. Hensley said that the most challenging aspects of the project
That steeple is indeed a clue to the building’s history. It included providing a new, accessible entrance (added within
was built in 1979-80 for the New Home Baptist Church, which an existing areaway to one side), and creating a single, gender-
had occupied an earlier house on the site since 1967. New Home neutral restroom, which required careful planning and
moved to the suburbs in the 1990s, and the building was then plumbing coordination.
used by the Seventh Day Adventist Church as a Hispanic Soon after interior work began, contractors uncovered
outreach center. The Studio Acting Conservatory bought the a huge, three-dimensional mural depicting the Last Supper,
unoccupied building from a developer in 2019 after it was sculpted by Akili Ron Anderson for the New Home Baptist
announced that the conservatory would leave its longtime home Church and featuring figures modeled after Black residents of
at the Studio Theatre in Logan Circle. the neighborhood. The sculpture, which had been presumed lost
Jon Hensley Architects was the architect of record for the in previous renovations, was deemed too fragile to be moved,
renovation, working with Deb Booth, Studio Theatre’s director and was instead restored in place by conservators from the
of design. Architect Robert Sponseller, FAIA, and landscape National Museum of African American History and Culture.
architect Ron Henderson, FASLA, consulted with Hensley and Zinoman plans to open the conservatory to the public for
Booth on the project. viewing of the mural once or twice a year.
The conservatory’s founder, Joy Zinoman, said the
strikingly simple yet boldly colored façade design was inspired

Circulation space around the studios Photo © Cassi Hayden
on the main level, with barn-style door
that can be opened for performances. SCENE CHANGE 73