The Champlain Apartment Building, also known as the Orme Building, is an historic structure located in Downtown Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

  The building was a real estate venture of Senator Redfield Proctor

Redfield Proctor

Redfield Proctor was a U.S. politician of the Republican Party. He served as the 37th Governor of Vermont from 1878 to 1880, as Secretary of War from 1889 to 1891, and as a United States Senator for Vermont from 1891 to 1908....

 of Vermont

Vermont

Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

 who was also the president of the Vermont Marble Company. Designed by Harold Clinton Smith it features a white marble Beaux-Arts Classical façade

Facade

A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....

. The building exemplifies the importance of elected officials on Washington’s design and the significance of private construction in implementing the City Beautiful movement

City Beautiful movement

The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy concerning North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of using beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. The movement, which was originally associated mainly with Chicago,...

 in Washington. Converted into an office building, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

in 1994.