Last mansion on D.C.'s Dupont Circle to become micro-units
We're sure there's a metaphor in here somewhere: The last mansion on Washington's historic Dupont Circle is going to be carved into luxury micro-apartments.
The Patterson Mansion was built in 1902-03, and in the 1920s it briefly served as a temporary White House for President Coolidge. It had housed a ladies' club since 1951.
At $20 million, it's the most expensive residential sale in D.C. this year -- in several years, in fact -- though the asking price was originally $26 million. The property has 36,470 square feet of interior space on a lot that's about a third of an acre.
(Click here or on a photo to launch a slideshow with historical images, current photos, architectural renderings, and old and new floor plans.)
The plan is to carve the property into almost 100 furnished units of about 350 square feet, a size that "managed to elicit a few gasps" at an Advisory Neighborhood Commission meeting earlier this year. The developer, SB-Urban, won permission to tear down a 1950s annex for a separate six-story addition behind the mansion. The mansion will remain, with its first floor becoming mostly communal space.
Number of parking spots: zero.
Developers say residents won't be eligible for neighborhood parking permits, either. Instead, a staffer will be dedicated solely to helping residents navigate the town's transit options, according to the D.C. website Urban Turf. Leases will come with bike-sharing and car-sharing memberships "in perpetuity," reported another D.C. website, District Source.
What kind of renter does SB-Urban envision? Urban Turf covered a different Advisory Neighborhood Commission about a very similar development and came back with this report:
"'We’re targeting a slightly higher-income, more upscale, sophisticated tenant than a typical micro-unit might be targeting,' [SB-Urban's Brook] Katzen said. 'Our demographic is single, urban professionals aged 25-35 earning $150,000-$200,000 a year. That income level is based on the fact that these units will be fully furnished, all utilities included.' Katzen even said that the project may offer a complimentary weekday breakfast.
"'It’s an all-inclusive package based on the idea that someone moving to Washington on short notice can show up with little more than credit cards and a laptop and a couple suitcases … and be settled Day 1,' Katzen said."
Patterson rents are expected to run $2,500 to $3,000 a month, District Source reported, and leases are expected to last six or seven months on average.
An earlier sale of the Patterson Mansion fell through. It would have installed a boutique hotel on the property, but preservationists resisted the plan because its annex would have been more intrusive-looking than SB-Urban's. (Click here or on an image for a slideshow that includes images of the rejected proposal.)
One of America's preeminent newspaper dynasties, the Medill Pattersons, built the mansion more than a century ago so that they'd have a place to stay and entertain when they were in town. Elinor "Nellie" Patterson, the daughter of Chicago Tribune owner Joseph Medill and the wife of Tribune Editor Robert Patterson, bought the lot for $83,406 in 1900; in the mid-1920s, she deeded the mansion to daughter Cissy, who later become America's first female newspaper editor in chief.
Cissy's will left it to the Red Cross, which shortly thereafter sold it to the Washington Club in 1951.
