The particulars of the property of this 1923 Kalorama house designed by storied architect Waddy Wood posed challenges for our client’s desire for broad traditional spaces for formal entertaining and an ultra-modern European living wing. With a triangular lot and no garden, our restoration maximized the property’s spatial potential with its generous length with rooms occupying the full depth of the house. An enfilade design underscores the house’s linearity as it demarcates the interior individual spaces. In each of the formal rooms, we employed planar trim work and wall paneling with a muted palette to underscore the breadth of visual space and create an understated elegance with a classicism distilled to its purist form. The planar framing works in harmonious dialogue with the minimalist lines of the Arcilinea kitchen that anchors the modernist wing with its tri-level, glass staircase that offers access to the living areas. The expanse of the classical ideal underpins this property, as traditional formalism merges seamlessly with modernity in one of Kalorama’s marquee residences.

Photography by Gordon Beall