By Nigel F. Maynard
Project Name: Bancroft / Location: Washington / Architect: Fowlkes Studio / Location: Washington / Photography: Jenn Verrier
After living in the Washington suburbs of Potomac, Maryland, for many years, empty nester couple Tabandeh Farahbaksh and Bahram Pourmand wanted to be nearer to the energy of city and to their kids. Understandably, they didn’t want to give up the scale and elegance they were used to in Potomac.
A search for the right home ended with this 5,750-square-foot five-bedroom, five-bath townhouse in the city’s Kalorama neighborhood, a hood that has seen influential residents such as former President Barack Obama, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and journalist Chris Wallace.
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The townhouse was 25 feet wide and had 10-foot ceilings–which was more than a typical DC row house–but it had been neglected for decades. Less than desirable elements included a rear addition that was falling apart, a garage that was too small to fit a car, worn down floors, a dark kitchen and small rooms. In short, the grandeur and sophistication that the house exhibited from the street was absent on the interiors.
To right the wrongs of the home and add some much-need elegance, the couple turned to the VW Fowlkes, AIA, and Catherine Fowlkes, AIA, the husband and wife team behind the D.C.-based firm Fowlkes Studio. Their scope of work included reimagining the building as well as adding a larger garage, a newly constructed addition and a full reorganization of the interior spaces.
“When the door is in the center of the building, it makes it difficult to have a parlor in the front of the building because it would have no buffer from the entry experience,” VW says. “We decided to lean into it by moving the stairs to the front of the house–instead of the middle where it had been–and then creating a grand entry and a second floor living room where the windows are larger and overlook the street.”
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The stairs vertically link entry to sitting rooms on the upper floors: on the second floor it is adjacent to the guest bedrooms and office and on the third floor it serves the primary suite.
Beyond the entry is an open plan living/dining room followed by a kitchen at the rear of the building, which spills out onto a terrace on the roof of the expanded garage with custom steel planters around its perimeter. The addition, its own autonomous structure, hovers over the terrace supported by piers. On the second level, the addition houses an office and on the third level it contains a walkout roof deck connected to the primary bedroom. The roof deck is open to the sky–surrounded by walls with shuttered openings to protect the bedroom from views from the rear alley but still allowing the sun to filter into the suite.
“The narrowness of the townhouse typology means there is good real estate in the back of the house and darker areas in the middle of the house,” VW says. “The primary suite was going to require a lot of closet space so we devoted the space in the middle of the building to an expansive closet with glass partitions and a large skylight. The closet provides access to the bathing area and it insulates the bedroom from the more public form of the house.”
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The client and the architects adopted a timeless aesthetic by juxtaposing the refinement and luxury that one would expect in the neighborhood of embassies and stately residences with a material grittiness. Smooth plaster walls of the addition stand in contrast to the flaking painted brick of the original house. In addition, the inside faces of the perimeter walls were covered in a glazed brick that contrasts with sumptuous stone fireplace fronts, finely crafted cabinetry and artisan plaster.
“The material palette embraces the pairing of rough and refined,” VW says. “Exposed brick with polished stone, cabinetry and steel partitions, mahogany and corten steel. The inspiration for this came when surveying the house in its previous dilapidated state. The finishes were all peeling off exposing the cruder underlayers. To us, this laying evoked romance and a living history in the architecture.”
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