Stylistically, Washington?s Watergate complex has always exhibited a split personality. The cutting-edge 1960s project by Italian architect Luigi Moretti came with a futuristic, curvilinear exterior and curiously fussy interiors. Following the luxury building?s debut, a model apartment marketed it with period trappings worthy of an 18th-century palazzo. Over the decades, occupants have struggled for a decorative truce. Now, in a total redo of that same 2,500-square-foot model unit, Washington architect Christian Zapatka has brought harmonious closure to a half-century of unease.
The finished space is an exuberant, art-filled modern home, rooted in the Watergate?s mid-century heritage but focused on today?s relaxed lifestyle. Its 100 linear feet of windows have been warmed up by the room?s gleaming expanses of teak, walnut and bird?s-eye maple. Soft, slight-scaled furnishings and nubby textiles selected by New York designer Didi Granger float in an airy living room overlooking the Potomac. Punches of color come from contemporary works by Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell and Al Held. Amid such glamour, the residents? Springer Spaniel can race across new, superhard white oak flooring or luxuriate on a creamy-white circular rug. ?The apartment lives wonderfully,? says owner Henry McKinnon, a retired psychotherapist and second-generation art collector from a family with philanthropic ties to Norfolk?s Chrysler Museum of Art. ?This place is the best.?
McKinnon and his partner Ron ...