Adding More Walls Was the Secret to This D.C. Apartment Renovation
Photo by Jennifer Hughes
It’s easy to feel like good fortune is on your side when a worthwhile place flies surprisingly under the radar. After architect Nicholas G. Potts and National Gallery of Art curator Aaron Wile decided to move to Washington, D.C., they came across the Kalorama Heights neighborhood and were drawn to its understated charms. “It’s a mostly residential neighborhood,” Aaron says. “It’s just west of Adams Morgan and close to downtown, where a lot of ambassadors and former presidents live. For whatever reason, the rental maps overlooked it.”
Their apartment was the only one available in the area when they found it, so they took it as a sign that this was where they’d get their bearings in the city in the fall of 2019. “We were looking for a temporary apartment before we found something to renovate,” Nicholas says. “But as we started to look around, we realized that inventory was low and most homes had already been updated in some way.” They bided their time, settling into a quiet Beaux Arts co-op with a little more than a dozen units, when their neighbor got in touch with some fortuitous news. She was selling her mother’s apartment in the building and asked if they’d be interested in it. The home happened to be directly above theirs.
