The Kennedy-Warren is a historic 11-story apartment house in 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....

 It is located at 3131-3133 Connecticut Avenue, NW between the Cleveland Park

Cleveland Park

Cleveland Park is a residential neighborhood in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C.It is located at and bounded approximately by Rock Creek Park to the east, Wisconsin and Idaho Avenues to the west, Klingle and Woodley Roads to the south, and Rodman and Tilden Streets to the north...

 and Woodley Park neighborhoods. The Art Deco

Art Deco

Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 building, which constructed from 1931, overlooks the National Zoological Park and Klingle Valley Park. The original main building was built between 1930 and 1931 with 210 apartments. The architect's plans called for a northeast wing and a south wing as well, but construction was delayed because of the onset of the Great Depression. The northeast wing was added in 1935 with 107 additional apartments as economic conditions improved in Washington. The B. F. Saul Company, owner of the building since 1935, added the south wing between 2002 and 2004. The architect of the northeast wing was A.H. Sonneman and of the south wing was Hartman-Cox. The current total number of apartments, ranging from efficiencies to three-bedroom units, is 425.

The Kennedy-Warren is considered the largest and best example of an Art Deco building in Washington, D.C. In 1989, the building was listed as a District of Columbia Historic Landmark, and in 1994 it was added to 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...

. The south wing has won numerous awards for the quality of its architecture and attention to historic detail, including the American Institute of Architects’ 2005 award of excellence for historic resources.¹²

Construction

Construction
In 1929, Monroe Warren Sr. approached Edgar S. Kennedy about the possibility of constructing a large apartment house on a tract that Kennedy owned on Connecticut Avenue. Kennedy was a partner with two brothers, William and Gordon, in Kennedy Brothers Company, a real estate development firm that had built a number of apartment houses in Washington, including 2400 16th Street, N.W., facing Meridian Hill Park. Warren owned a construction firm, Monroe and R. B. Warren, Inc., that built co-operative apartment houses, including Tilden Gardens.
Kennedy and Warren hired the architect Joseph Younger (1892–1932) to design the building. Younger was a native of Washington, D.C., and graduated in 1912 from the architecture school at George Washington University. Kennedy and Warren obtained $1.75 million in financing from the B. F. Saul Company, American Security Bank, and the Union Trust Company. They started work on the central section and the northwest wing (both facing Connecticut Avenue) in October 1930, and the building opened in October of the following year. Kennedy and Warren had been promised a loan by the Integrity Trust Company in Philadelphia to build the northeast and south wings, but it fell through with the worsening Depression. In 1932, they filed for bankruptcy. The B. F. Saul Company, as the principal creditor, obtained title to the building in 1935.⁴

Architecture

Since the site of the Kennedy-Warren slopes steeply from Connecticut Avenue down to the National Zoo, the lobby level is designated the third floor. The two levels below have apartments that face the zoo. Below those are four basement levels, including a large parking garage. The building is an imposing sight on Connecticut Avenue because of its massive size and fine detailing, which includes tan and orange variegated brick, limestone carvings, and the extensive use of aluminum. The Kennedy-Warren was the first building in Washington, D.C., to use aluminum extensively; applications include the entrance porch, spandrels between the windows on the façade, balustrades in the lobby, and even an aluminum-leaf arched ceiling in the ground-floor corridors, unique in Washington, D.C. The stone carvings are in the Aztec Deco style, influenced by the carved stonework of ancient Mexico, and include griffins, eagles, and a frieze of elephants and starbursts three floors above street level. An unusual feature of the Kennedy-Warren when it opened in 1931 was its air-cooling system. Three enormous fans drew cool air from Klingle Park at the back of the building and forced it through the public corridors. Residents could then open metal louvers above their hallway doors to cool individual apartments. Advertisements for the Kennedy-Warren showed that the air was at least ten degrees cooler than on Connecticut Avenue. The fans were removed during the 2009–11 renovation after central air conditioning was installed.⁵

Expansion

In 2002, the B. F. Saul Company undertook construction of the missing south wing. Obtaining the necessary permits and approvals had taken five years. The architect was Hartman-Cox of Washington, D.C. The plans followed Joseph Younger’s 1931 design very closely for the exterior. The Belden Brick Company of Ohio made the variegated brick to match exactly the brick of the historic building. New carvings of Indiana limestone match those in the original building as well. The Boose Aluminum Foundry Company of Reamstown, Pennsylvania, cast the spandrels for the south wing. (ALCOA cast the originals on the historic main building.) Hartman-Cox diverged from Younger’s plans for the exterior in one respect, by adding balconies to the south and east sides where the south wing faces the National Zoo.
Joseph Younger’s plan for the interior called for long corridors running through each floor. Hartman-Cox consulted with Robert M. Swedroe Architects and Planners of Miami, Florida, who are experts in apartment floor plans. They proposed replacing the long corridors with two widely spaced elevators, which in some cases open directly into the apartments. Eliminating the corridors saved space, increased privacy, and allowed for much larger apartments, some of which are unusual “pass-through” apartments: They have windows on both the front and the back of the building. Only the corridor on the ground floor connects to the 1931 building. The layout of the apartments is traditional, with enclosed kitchens and formal dining rooms. The largest, with two bedrooms, two baths, and a den, is 2300 square feet.
The south wing was completed in 2004. The amenities include a fitness club with steam rooms and a swimming pool facing the zoo. There is a large parking garage as well.⁶

Restoration of the Historic Main Building

In 2009, the B. F. Saul Company, undertook the restoration and renovation of the historic main building, a project that is expected to cost $60 million. Contractors installed new double-hung mahogany windows, built a new roof and roof deck, and carefully cleaned the brick façade and aluminum spandrels following preservation standards. After discussions with the Art Deco Society of Washington as well as the residents, the B.F. Saul Company decided to preserve the original floor plans of most apartments. As the contractors renovated each apartment, they kept the original hardware, including the glass doorknobs and brass hinges, as well as the kitchen cabinets and apartment doors, and they sanded and stained the original wood floors. To bring the building up to current standards, they replaced the wiring and plumbing, and installed a sprinkler system and central air-conditioning in the apartments and public areas. The central air-conditioning replaced the huge basement fans, which had been in use since 1931, as well as window units. The company put new stoves and refrigerators in the apartments and, for the first time, washers and dryers.
Valley Craftsmen, of Baltimore, Maryland, restored the elaborate Art Deco lobby. They re-stenciled the beamed ceiling in a geometric Art Deco design using gold leaf, and hand-painted the walls to resemble the original veneer panels. The Saul Company replaced the missing Art Deco chandeliers and wall sconces and restored the handsome inlaid Art Deco elevator doors on the second, third, and fourth floors. On each side of the lobby is a lounge--the south lounge was restored to its original design and the north lounge was converted to a piano-bar, which is open to residents. On the second floor, there is ballroom with fine Art Deco detailing. The ballroom was a popular venue for events of all kinds, and many of the best known big bands of the era played there. It has been closed for many years, but current plans (2011) call for it to be restored and reopened as an event space.
The Kennedy-Warren had a dining room, which was operated as a public restaurant, from 1931 until it closed in 1990. Such dining rooms were once common in Washington apartment houses, but the only one still in operation as of 2011 is in the Westchester, at 4000 Cathedral Avenue, N.W. The B. F. Saul Company reportedly plans to reopen the dining room, but it will be open only to residents.⁷

Notable tenants

During the 1930s and ‘40s, there were many military officers living at the Kennedy-Warren. In 1937 alone, there were 75 officers in the building, including 5 generals. Admiral Royal Eason Ingersoll (1883–1976) lived there during World War II. He was commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet and is credited with organizing the defeat of the German U-boat fleet during the war. ⁸Major General “Pa” Watson (1883–1945) lived with his wife in penthouse apartment 1102 from 1933 to 1945. General Watson was President Franklin Roosevelt’s senior military aide and appointments secretary. He accompanied FDR on all his travels, dying on shipboard in February 1945 while returning from the Yalta Conference. Harry Hopkins (1890–1946), FDR’s closest political advisor, lived in the Kennedy-Warren during the 1930s. Hopkins headed three major New Deal agencies, including the Works Progress Administration. Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973) and his wife, Lady Bird, lived in a three-bedroom apartment in 1937 and 1938 when he first came to Washington as a junior congressman from Texas.⁹ Currently, DC Wizards basketball player Rashard Lewis lives in the South Wing.

External links

• Official site