sandr018

Washington is a city full of grand old apartment buildings but my favorite may well just be the Westchester , located in NW DC just off Massachusetts Avenue near Wesley Heights and Spring Valley. While many of the best apartment buildings are located along Connecticut Avenue or in Kalorama here in Washington,  the Westchester is an outlier.  This has perhaps led to its reputation as a sort of retirement village for the neighborhoods which surround it (some of the wealthiest in the city). Thankfully the buildings ( there are numerous buildings spread throughout beautiful gardens) have been lovingly maintained and barely touched since they were built in 1931; having been decorated by the likes of Dorothy Draper in the late 30s and a host of other talents.  The buildings turned private Coop in 1951.  I love these screens in Building "A"'s lobby which capture some of the elegant plaster details.  Notice the numerous subtle paint colors used in the moldings -a profes...

Of all of my trips to Paris I had never made it into the Latin Quarter to the Pantheon . Sure, I had admired the neo-classical dome marking the cities' skyline from a distance but never made the trek up the Sainte Genevieve hill to visit until just recently.  Up close the stunning stone decoration comes into sharp focus. The huge scale of the interior needs other visitors to fully appreciate.  The proportions are so grand that it's hard to grasp the true scale otherwise. The building has a fascinating history. Originally built as a church to Saint Genevieve by Louis XV in thanks for surviving an illness, construction began in 1758. The church was designed by architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot  who was an early adoptor of the neo-classical style and this was to become his most famous commission. The history becomes more interesting as the structure was de-consecrated by revolutionists in 1791 and turned into a mausoleum for Great Frenchmen and stripped of all ecclesiastica...