architecture

Thursday, April 9, 2009

2501 Pennsylvania Ave, interiors!

One of the great things about blogging is you never know who will read your posts. After posting some exterior pictures of a new condo building here in DC the other week (see that posting HERE), I was contacted by one of the agents working for the developer offering a tour of the interior! So come on in with me!As it is a very upscale building (the 16 units in the building START at 1.5 MILLION, ladies and gentleman, a bit out of my price range), the lobby is suitably discrete. Classic Mies Barcelona lounges furnish a seating area with tasteful stone & wood clad walls. The unit I'll feature here is on the 3rd floor and operates as a furnished example and sales center (the building isn't complete yet). It was furnished and decorated by Urban Essentials, one of my favorite stores here in DC up on U street (where I got my desk!).
The main floors of the building each have 3 large units - the individual entrances have sidelight windows which I love in an apartment building!
Inside, each unit has a foyer (so important as a seperation between public space and your private unit! Much nicer than walking directly into the living room). A really cool feature was the intercom video system - see the little screen beside the telephone -that way you know it's the pizza delivery man and not a burglar!
This unit had a really beautiful round foyer before you walked into the living room. A really cool antique photograph collection of Parisian Beaux arts buildings lined the walls.
Here is the all important floor plan (you know I love these!) You can see the entryway and round foyer on the center left hand side.The living room is HUGE for a house, let alone an apartment. These were the hugest apartments I've ever seen though so I guess they demand grand rooms.Beautifully decorated and each unit had at least one fireplace, some had a few! This one had a large stone surround and mantel. The corner of the living room has a bay which juts out over over the old entryway to the building with a perfect view straight up Pennsylvania Avenue. I'd want to curl up here with a good book and cup of tea!
Next room over is the kitchen with attached family room and breakfast area. I loved the modern euro-style cabinets.
Dark wood and white marble, need I say more? Heaven!
I loved that the backsplash wasn't tile or pieces but one continuous slab of marble. So clean (and easy to KEEP clean!) Nice range too -6 burners in an apartment?! Nice!
One thing the architect did well was plan storage space. There were tons of closets, enormous laundry rooms (as big as my entire apartment, people) and the closets that were visible in hallways had really nice built-in doors and organization systems. This was the hallway into the master bedroom.
A nice set up, Urban essentials did a great job staging the space. I wanted to take a nap in here!
But, getting to the good part, the most intriguing thing to me when I first saw the building was the little tower, seen below. I wanted to know so badly what it was, and more importantly, I WANTED TO GO THERE.
Turns out, the penthouse units on the top 3 floors each have enormous roof decks. The lucky one has the little tower as a pavilion; perfect for parties or a little getaway (or rent it out to poor architects like me? haha).
So cute -the space inside is totally open with tons of windows and amazing views up the street (directly above the furnished apartment's living room bay). I barely paid attention to the view though and the HUGE roof deck of this unit because of this little 'house'. The best part of the building!
The most amazing unit though was 2 stories with a unique curved glass stairway. First...the plansThis is bigger than most houses and it's an APARTMENT! How cool is that!
I won't show you pictures of this unit as it's not finished yet, but you can still see how great this staircase is going to be! It's only more amazing because it floats in front of this window 8 stories in the air.I hope you enjoyed the tour, thanks to Michele for showing me around and playing hostess! If you're interested, you can see floor plans for all the units and more information about the building on their website HERE. I know some of you LOVE the floor plans!

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