The New Piano Man in Georgetown

Peter Murray •

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With Mr. Smith’s recent move to the waterfront, Georgetown Piano Bar has a grip on M Street. The bar, which formerly housed dance club Modern, opened Friday, Sept. 12. We had a chance to talk to owner and Renaissance man Bill Thoet before the bar opened.

Georgetowner: You work as a consultant for your day job. What was the appeal of owning a bar from that perspective?

Bill Thoet: I’ve traveled alone a lot as a consultant and I’m not the type to just sit in the hotel room, so I go out. There are a lot of different places to hit when you go out. If you want to go out and be lonely, you can just go out to a regular bar. If you want to go out and meet people, you go to a piano bar. People are engaged in the music, the player and with each other. I can walk in there and in a few minutes I’ll be talking to 20 people.

GT: Has music always been a draw for you?

BT: Music, especially singing, has been a big thing in my family. My great grandfather was a medical missionary in China and was named one of the best baritones in China. My parents sing, my sister sings and I sing. I was in musicals in high school and that sort of thing.

GT: If someone comes in here on a random night, will they hear you sing?

BT: Oh yeah, absolutely. Every night I’m here, I will sing a couple of songs. One of my favorite go-to artists is Frank Sinatra. Sometimes I’ll sing “Ol’ Man River” by Paul Robeson since I can really go deep.

GT: What are your favorite three piano songs?

BT: “Piano Man” by Billy Joel and “House of the Rising Son” by the Animals. “Sweet Caroline” is always a fun one too because it brings everyone in.

GT: Why pick Georgetown as the location for the bar?

BT: I always had Georgetown in mind. It’s hard to find a place where you get walk-in traffic and that’s great for something like this. A lot of visitors walk through Georgetown and that is something I wanted to bring to the bar from my personal experience. Tourists come from hotels and when they see the piano upstairs and come on down, they’ll be hooked.

GT: What was it like changing the space from Modern to the Georgetown Piano Bar?

BT: It has been a huge project. This used to be a 90s club, with a white bar with bottle service, a disco ball and kitschy booths. We had to redecorate to give it a new feel. We brought it down with wood tones and brought in the piano. Now we have this bright red piano, which I was initially surprised by. But I think it makes the piano the center of the room, which was the concept from the outset. We have a player piano too that plays on its own when you feed it an old song scroll. We’ll use that when pianists are sick (laughs).

GT: Are you coming at the bar with your consultant hat on?

BT: Yes, we are trying to get feedback and improve constantly. We may strike a deal with some local restaurants so that patrons can bring food in here since we don’t have a kitchen. We may also get dueling pianists going back and forth with one another. It’s a fun theme.

GT: What do you like to do outside of work?

BT: I became the Chairman of the Board for the National ALS Association in February 2014. The ice bucket challenge has been amazing. This kind of viral thing has never happened before for an organization like ours, and the challenge has brought in $110 million and counting. For the grand opening of Georgetown Piano Bar, we’re planning on shaking martinis in an ice bucket and donating all proceeds to the local chapter of the ALS Association.

D.C. Council Votes to Allow Concealed-Carry Guns

Peter Murray •

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City Council passed legislation on Tuesday, Sept. 23 that allows for the carrying of concealed firearms in public in the District. The law was crafted in response to an August federal court decision that struck down the city’s ban on concealed carrying on constitutional grounds. Neither lawmakers nor concealed carry supporters are happy with the “emergency law,” which will only be in effect for 90 days. From there, the Council and courts will shape the future of concealed firearm carrying in D.C.

Wolf Trap Ball: ‘Lifted By The Arts, We Soar’

Peter Murray • September 18, 2014

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The Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts hosted its annual ball Saturday, Sept. 13. The soiree was held on the stage of the Filene Center and was presented in partnership with the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates. The night’s entertainment, décor and cuisine paid tribute to Emirati culture, with guests smoking hookahs in a makeshift lounge and sporting henna art painted on-site. The event raised more than $1 million for the foundation’s arts and education programs and was well attended by members of the area’s political class, including Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe. [gallery ids="101854,138212,138208" nav="thumbs"]

Taste of Georgetown: Ready on K Street, Sept. 13

Peter Murray • September 15, 2014

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The Taste of Georgetown is back for its 21st year, Saturday, Sept. 13 at a new location on the Georgetown waterfront (K Street between Wisconsin Avenue and Thomas Jefferson Street).

Expect a plethora of food, fun and music all brought to you, courtesy of the Georgetown Business Improvement District and a handful of sponsors, including Long & Foster, Whole Foods, Bank of Georgetown and PNC.

The main attraction is, of course, the food. Dean & Deluca, Luke’s Lobster, I-Thai, Malmaison, Rialto, Filomena Ristorante, Tackle Box, Thunder Burger and many more will be there, offering two small signature dishes each. Dishes cost $5 for one or $20 for five.

The event menu is enough to get your mouth watering well in advance of the event. In addition, there will be a competition a la “Iron Chef” between some of Georgetown’s best chefs, challenging them to create a unique dish with specified ingredients. Baked & Wired, on the other hand, will be hosting a cupcake-eating competition. At the Pinstripes station, kids will be able to play bocce ball, hula hoop, get their faces painted and participate in balloon-animal-making. Meanwhile, adults can enjoy alcoholic beverages in the Craft Beer & Wine Tasting Pavilion, where single drink tickets go for $4 and packs of three for $10.

Parents and kids alike can enjoy live country and bluegrass music brought to you by Gypsy Sally’s. Bands playing include Human Jukebox Country, Letitia Van Sant & the Bonafides and Justin T Rawick and the Common Good.

All proceeds from the event go towards the Georgetown Ministry Center and its services to aid the area’s homeless. Don’t miss out on After Taste Happy Hour, where event-goers can keep the party going with deals on food and drinks at some of Georgetown’s best restaurants. For more information, visit the event’s website at tasteofgeorgetown.com.

Mr. Smith’s Items to Be Auctioned Off

Peter Murray •

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Mr. Smith’s Restaurant closed at the end of August, but it’s just getting around to auctioning off its old stuff. The bar is relocating to the old Chadwicks location and is shedding its old décor in the process. Items for sale include small statues, beer signs, kitchen equipment, glassware and more. If you’re interested in checking out items for sale, visit Mr. Smith’s between noon and 4 p.m., Sept. 9. Rasmus Auctions is in charge of the online auction, which runs until Wednesday. Follow the link for more information. rasmus.com

EverFi: Leading the Charge in Education Innovation from Georgetown

Peter Murray • September 10, 2014

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EverFi’s office is out of place in traditionally buttoned-up Washington. The space is an open floor plan inhabited by young, dressed down employees who have unlimited access to food and beverages in the loft kitchen and don’t hesitate to chat up their amiable CEO Tom Davidson. Unlike most D.C. offices, EverFi has no official vacation policy, no time off policy and no dress code. To top it all off, the company’s focus is on “innovation” and the walls are covered with photos of smiling EverFi team members traveling the world with their bright orange company sweatbands. EverFi would be more at home in Silicon Valley if not for its mission to overhaul the education system by infusing underfunded public schools with private sector funding.

That mission starts with EverFi’s education programs, designed to teach students from fourth grade to their senior year in college about life skills ranging from managing personal finances to drinking alcohol responsibly to developing computer code to preventing cyberbullying and sexual assault. In Davidson’s eyes, learning these skills is essential to students’, and therefore, the country’s future. However, tightly stretched school budgets and days dedicated to teaching to common core standards leave little time and funding for these topics that are essential to post-school life. When one takes into account the difficulty of teaching kids these topics and add to that a lack of topical expertise in public schools, the deck is stacked against post-graduate success for students in underfunded schools.

EverFi approaches the education system with software solutions that teach students how to maneuver around issues that their lives will revolve around in the real world. The idea sprung from Davidson’s work as a state legislator in Maine in the early 1990s. In that role, he “focused on how technology can change the classroom,” spearheading initiatives to equip students with laptops and wire schools and libraries. After talking extensively with teachers, administrators, students and parents across the country, Davidson found that underfunded schools were not teaching in areas of paramount importance – personal finances, how to get loans, computer coding and engineering. He created EverFi to bring important life lessons to underprivileged schools in an effort to take on some of the country’s “most intractable problems.” The ambitious Davidson jokes that EverFi has established a “political infrastructure” in Iowa and New Hampshire, but when asked about a return to politics, explains that “no one in their right mind would vote for me.”

Like executives at other big education technology companies headquartered in D.C., Davidson was drawn to the District. for its pool of bright young talent. He chose to headquarter in Georgetown from a recruitment standpoint, arguing that setting up home base in a “cultural center” is important to 21st-century workers. It doesn’t hurt that the office is a short commute from his Foxhall home. And while some may complain about the lack of public transit in Georgetown, Davidson argues that Capitol Bike Share and the Circulator have changed the game for his workforce and explained that the company reimburses employees to utilize these options.

So, how does EverFi’s programming make issues like financial literacy and civic engagement immediate to students who are spending seven or more hours a day at their desks? Simple. EverFi’s programs teach students “in a way that is very connected to how they learn outside the classroom.” The software combines components of gaming with elements of social media to pique students’ interest and keep them working towards in-program badges and rewards. Teachers track student progress through EverFi’s system, allowing them to give more personalized attentions to students that are falling behind on certain topics. Davidson’s kids are too young for EverFi’s programs, but he assures me that once they come of EverFi age, “they’ll be using the programs through college, whether they like it or not.”

At colleges and universities all over the country, EverFi’s programs are teaching millions of students about alcohol responsibility and sexual assault prevention during freshman orientation, before many upperclassmen even step foot back on campus. Discussions on these topics, Davidson explains, used to be handled by “RAs [resident assistants] at bad pizza parties, with no way to know whether a student learned about the subject or was even present.” EverFi’s college programs are based on information and data provided to the company by experts at the forefront of these issues. Furthermore, they create accountability by showing administrators exactly who has participated and what they have learned. While news has been abuzz of late about tech companies breaching the privacy of their consumers, Davidson assures me that only teachers have access to the identifying aspects of student data. EverFi makes improvements and updates to its programming based on data that has been stripped of identifying factors automatically by the software.

Like many companies dealing in public-private partnerships, EverFi has overcome a number of barriers in bringing their programs to schools across the country. Davidson says that the biggest barrier to EverFi’s entry in certain schools is a “crowded day for teachers who have been asked to do more than they could ever bear” in terms of institutionalized assessments and the reinforcement of the emotional state of kids. “It’s hard to go in and ask them to do one more thing,” Davidson added, arguing that EverFi provides a supplemental netting under public schools’ students without displacing their curriculum. He emphasized that his company’s software is aimed at “empowering teachers” and touted EverFi’s new partnership with the National Education Association Foundation as proof.

EverFi has overcome the financial restraints of public schools by reaching out to and partnering with the private sector. The funding model brings companies, foundations and people “with the deepest pockets,” like Tiger Woods, pop singer Pharrell Williams, JPMorgan the NBA, to the table to fund EverFi’s programs for schools and districts they care about. These individuals and entities purchase the software from EverFi and work with the company to deploy the product in a predetermined school or district. However, there is no corporate or other outside involvement in the creation of EverFi’s products. Davidson says that EverFi has and always will be a “consumer-focused company.” He envisions building the model out to erase the disparities in learning that occur between poorer and more well off schools.

EverFi has far-reaching partnerships in the area, operating its alcohol responsibility program at Georgetown University, and running its other programs in Fairfax, Arlington, Prince George’s and Montgomery County public schools. Despite being headquartered in the District, EverFi has had trouble making inroads with D.C. City Public Schools. Davidson attributes this to the fact that some “big city districts are like aircraft carriers – they are difficult to turn and engage with sometimes.” However, EverFi’s programs have been deployed at Wilson High, Anacostia Senior High School, Eaton Elementary and a number of area charter schools.

EverFi’s programs aren’t just for kids though. In recent years, the company has partnered with banks and groups like the Mortgage Bankers Association to get their financial literacy programs into the hands of adults who need them. Davidson says the company believes in the concept of “education currency,” or the idea that companies and organizations should reward people who take time to gain better information about their finances and learn how to protect themselves from predatory lending. Some companies are already rewarding consumers with lower rates, better terms and lower closing costs because they have completed EverFi’s programs and measurably learned how to be more fiscally responsible.

The end game, Davidson explains, is to build out a “very large, international company that is in the business of alleviating big social issues.” He does not want EverFi to be seen as a “socially responsible” or “double bottom line business,” but rather a company that is celebrated for bringing capital to solve the country and world’s biggest problems with education. Private capital has revolutionized industry in America with innovation, so why can’t a similar model work to bring classrooms to the 21st century? That’s the question EverFi is in the process of answering.

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Who Lives Here: Mika Brzezinski and Scott Altman

Peter Murray •

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Georgetowners may notice “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski strolling through the neighborhood in the coming days and weeks. The popular media personality just bought a condo in what used to be the Phillips School between N and Olive Streets. While her show is based in New York and she and her family currently live there, she purchased property here as “Morning Joe” has become increasingly focused on politics in the nation’s capitol. D.C.’s thriving real estate market could have also influenced the purchase. Alexander Memorial Baptist Church is next up on the list of old properties being converted into condo units. Maybe Mika will convince friend and co-host Joe Scarborough to become a neighbor.

If you wander a block north of Mika’s place, you’ll pass a house where retired NASA astronaut Scott Altman lives with his wife, Jill. They temporarily live near the corner of 28th and Dumbarton Streets while they await a move back to the west side, where their house on 36th Street is being redone. Altman piloted or commanded four space shuttle missions. Years before, he got to fly his F-14 in the movie, “Top Gun,” which he admits was a real kick since the pilots were allowed to “buzz the tower” at the Miramar Air Station in San Diego. The two are active in the community and regularly volunteer at the Georgetown Senior Center.

Around the corner from the Altmans, several neighbors routinely walk their dogs past the intersection of 27th and O Streets, where a black SUV or sedan sits continually at the corner. Questions have arisen among local residents as to who is living in the neighborhood with a security detail. Things became slightly clearer last year when anti-war group Code Pink demonstrated on neighborhood streets. Well, suffice it to say, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and his family live nearby. Johnson was sworn in to his current role at the end of 2013 but has lived in Georgetown for a number of years.
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Bunny Mellon’s Greatest Treasure: Oak Springs Farm in Upperville

Peter Murray •

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Bunny Mellon’s expansive Oak Springs Farm just hit the market, listed by Washington Fine Properties. Rachel Lambert Mellon died at the remarkable age of 103 earlier this year, and her Upperville, Va., property has just arrived on the market for a whopping $70 million. The farm was the fabulously wealthy Mellon’s greatest treasure – a private hideaway where she pursued her deepest passions and entertained some of the world’s biggest celebrities.

In Washington, D.C., Bunny and her philanthropist husband Paul Mellon are best known for their generous donation of more than 1,000 18th- and 19th-century European paintings to the National Gallery of Art. The couple also forged a fruitful relationship with the Kennedy family in the 1950s. The friendship was born on a visit to Oak Springs by first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who was so inspired by the property that she requested Bunny’s advice on fine arts and antiques for the White House restoration. Later on during the presidency, Bunny was invited back to redesign the White House Rose Garden. She also landscaped Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis’s Martha’s Vineyard home and the JFK Presidential Library and arranged flowers for President John Kennedy’s funeral and Caroline Kennedy’s 1986 wedding in Hyannis Port, Mass.

Her Oak Springs estate embodies the things we remember most about Bunny – her passion for the arts, her love of horses, her zeal for gardening and her aversion to public attention.

Bunny cultivated the farm’s breathtaking 2,000 acres to the tee, with vine-draped arbors, sprawling meadows, neatly arranged flowerbeds and secret gardens. She added barns, stables, guest houses, a pool house, a small farmhouse that acted as Mellon’s home in later life, and the “Brick House,” a neo-Georgian mansion, designed by William Adams Delano.

Additionally, the property is sprinkled with beautiful outdoor sculpture — including a bronze statue of the Mellons’ Kentucky Derby winning horse, Sea Hero — enchanting garden fountains and classically inspired, half-draped nude stone figures. The famously private Mrs. Mellon even installed a private mile-long airstrip, a rarity at the time for a private home in the mid-Atlantic states.

Exquisite details drip from ever corner of the property’s interior space. Murals in the greenhouse trick the eye, with their trompe l’oeil portrayal of baskets, water cans and a host of other gardening supplies. Also depicted are personal items, like Bunny’s gardening hat, coat and cigarette case. The tromp d’loeil continues in the form of painted sun shade on the kitchen tiles inside Little Oak Spring, a small farmhouse, designed by H. Page Cross as a cozier house for the Mellons later on in life.

Bunny’s ardor for horticulture led to the creation of the Oak Springs Garden Library, a collection of art, artifacts, rare books and manuscripts on all things gardening. The library was expanded in 2010. Before her death Mrs. Mellon, established the Gerald B. Lambert Foundation to maintain the building and the collection it houses.

While Bunny owned properties in locales ranging from Antigua to Paris to Nantucket, she considered Oak Springs Farm her home. Accordingly, she and her husband displayed their impressive art collection, spanning centuries of work, all around their estate for their own and their guests’ enjoyment. As America’s quintessential trendsetter, Bunny was an avid collector of jewelry, clothing and other decorative objects. She even employed her own carpenter to design custom pieces for Oak Spring Farm’s interior.

Unfortunately for potential buyers, Bunny’s personal estate is not being sold alongside the farm – her treasured possessions will begin being auctioned off by Sotheby’s in November. Sales are expected to net more than $100 million with proceeds, benefitting the Garden Library and a number of other entities dear to Bunny’s heart. However, the property itself represents an opportunity for prospective buyers to own a piece of history and become a part of the Mellon’s far-reaching legacy.
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