Challenge:

After the original owners sold the Metropolitan in the mid-1960s, the building fell into disrepair. When the current owners acquired the property, they sought to reveal the Metropolitan’s 1930s architecture while providing modern infrastructure and amenities. The apartments are laid out along central hallways that feature terrazzo floors and textured plaster walls and ceilings. The Metropolitan is noted for its historic design and its main lobby, which retains its original configuration and most of its interior finishes, including matching east and west wing marble stairs, a mosaic tile floor, square-edged marble baseboards, and walls clad in Venetian plaster and scagliola pilasters throughout the room. The historic restoration would be more expensive than simply demolishing the historic interiors and starting over.

Though the Metropolitan was designed by George Santmyers, DC’s most prolific architect, and commissioned by Abraham S. Kay, an influential builder and philanthropist, it had not been listed on the DC Inventory of Historic Sites or the National Register of Historic Places. Without such recognition, the new owners could not receive historic preservation tax credits for the revitalization of the building that they wanted to undertake. They consulted History Matters to evaluate if the Metropolitan could be listed on the DC and the National Register.