Living Social Not Just Online
• April 5, 2012

Notice all the media attention heaped on LivingSocial (1445 New York Avenue) lately? Chalk it up to the company’s shift away from being a strictly online daily deals operation to one also focused on experimental retail “experience” space. Last year, LivingSocial leased the Douglas Development building at 918 F Street, transforming the 26,000 SF historic building near Gallery Place and the Verizon Center www.downtowndc.org/go/verizon-center into multi-purpose space for entertainment and a variety of cooking, art and exercise classes led by industry experts and local instructors. By now, it’s widely known that celebrity chef, Mike Isabella, of  Graffiato www.downtowndc.org/go/graffiato (707 6th Street) fame staged a successful pop-up restaurant there over four days last month. Tickets sold out within a few hours at $119 per person. What’s next? Keep up with the full list of offerings at the Living Social website www.livingsocial.com

Howard Theatre Reopens
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The Howard Theatre, which launched the careers of Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Marvin Gaye and The Supremes, will re-open in April 2012 after a $29 million renovation. The remodeled theater features a state-of-the-art acoustic system and will offer a wide-range of live entertainment. The new configuration, with black walnut walls, oak floors and Brazilian granite bars on each level, features ten foot video screens and recording capabilities allowing The Howard to retain the intimate feel of its former space. The building combines elements of Beaux Arts, Italian Renaissance and neoclassical design. The balconied interior is built with flexibility including supper club-style seating for approximately 650, which can be quickly adjusted to allow standing room for 1,100. Located at 620 T Street NW, the closest Metro station is Shaw/Howard U. A full dining menu features American cuisine with classic soul influences. Doors open two hours prior to all seated shows, with first-come, first-serve basis seating. For standing room-only shows, a streamlined menu will be offered. Opening day is on April 9, 2012, Howard Theatre Community Day. The event will feature live music performances, memorabilia displays and tours of the theatre. A memorabilia drive is currently underway, in which members of the community are donating tickets, posters, and souvenirs from the theatre’s past.
The Howard Theatre was originally built by architect J. Edward Storck for the National Amusement Company and opened on August 22, 1910. It featured vaudeville, live theatre, talent shows,and was home to two performing companies, the Lafayette Players and the Howard University Players. The theatre was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. While The Howard Theatre inspired change, it felt the impact of a nation in flux following the 1968 riots. Eventually, the degradation of the neighborhood forced the theatre to close in 1980. In 2000, the Howard Theatre was designated an American Treasure under the “Save America’s Treasures” program. In 2006, Howard Theatre Restoration www.howardtheatre.org/home.html was formed to raise funds for the restoration and the construction of the Howard Theatre Culture and Education Center, which will house a museum, classrooms, listening library, recording studio, and offices.

It’s Spring in the City!
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The National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade draws about 100,000 spectators from around the world, combining decorated floats, gigantic colorful helium balloons, marching bands, clowns, horses, antique cars, military and celebrity performances. ABC’s Katie Couric co-hosts the parade with special correspondent Alex Trebek of Jeopardy and ABC7’s Alison Starling and Leon Harris. Performers include singer-songwriter Javier Colon, 2011 winner of The Voice. Siobhan Magnus, American Idol finalist, sings a rendition of “Are You Ready for a Miracle?” Honorary marshals include singer and actress Marie Osmond and Olympians Kristi Yamaguchi and Benita Fitzgerald Mosley. This year, the performance area expands across the steps of the National Archives, when over 1,500 youth from around the country perform as part of the Youth Choir and All-Star Tap Team. It goes from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on April 14, rain or shine. The parade passes many attractions, National Archives, the Department of Justice, Smithsonian Museums, the Washington Monument and the White House. The parade is free and open to the public. For $20 you may purchase a reserved grandstand seat. www.ticketmaster.com/event/1500475CC4DF5AA1?artistid=847061&majorcatid=10003&minorcatid=54

Capital Bikeshare Launces Pilot with Back on My Feet DC
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Last month, Capital Bikeshare and Back on My Feet DC announced the launch of their pilot partnership, in which Capital Bikeshare will offer $50 annual memberships to 10 qualified Back on My Feet DC members, a national non-profit organization dedicated to creating independence and self-sufficiency within the homeless community through the act of running. The ten members who were selected to participate have maintained a 90% or better attendance record on Monday, Wednesday and Friday 5:45 a.m. runs and completed several educational and job training courses.
 
“Back on My Feet DC is thrilled to launch a partnership with Capital Bikeshare,” said Autumn Campbell, Regional Executive Director for Back on My Feet Baltimore-Washington D.C. “Our staff, members, and volunteers are excited to help bring Capital Bikeshare into the community and continue to promote healthy lifestyle choices.”

Selected Back on My Feet DC members will have access to the largest bikesharing program in the United States, with 150 stations and 1,300 bikes in the District and Arlington. Members will be able to use Capital Bikeshare to get to and from job interviews, classes, trainings or early morning runs.

Drink Up, D.C., the Budget Could Use Those Tax Dollars
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As part of his 2013 budget rolled out last month, Mayor Vince Gray proposed that hours for liquor sales at bars, restaurants and stores be extended. Under Gray’s proposal, bars would be allowed to extend weekday and weekend hours by an hour—booze could be sold until 3 a.m. on weekdays and 4 a.m. on weekends—while liquor stores could start selling at 7 a.m. Monday through Saturday. (You could also buy beer and wine at the grocery store starting at 7 a.m. on Sundays.) All told, the changes, which would take effect in October if they passed the D.C. Council, could bring in $5.3 million for the city in 2013. (That’s a small portion of the $172 million budget deficit, $69.4 million of which was closed through “revenue initiatives.”) This isn’t the first time that D.C. has tweaked its liquor sales hours, nor is it the only jurisdiction to do so in the quest for ever-scarcer tax dollars. As part of Gray’s 2012 budget, the tax on alcohol went from nine to 10% and hours at stores were extended. [dcist.com/2011/09/drinking_our_way_to_balanced_budget.php}(http://dcist.com/2011/09/drinking_our_way_to_balanced_budget.php) and bars and restaurants were allowed to  start serving earlier in the morning. [http://dcist.com/2011/10/early-to-rise_brunchers_can_get_sun.php}(http://dcist.com/2011/10/early-to-rise_brunchers_can_get_sun.php)

Keys to Halcyon House Passed to S&R Foundation
• March 27, 2012

S&R Foundation attorney Alice Haase has confirmed that Halcyon House, one of Washington’s most historic homes at 3400-3410 Prospect Street, N.W., has gone to settlement. Under contract since November 2011 to the S&R Foundation, a National Cherry Blossom Festival participant, the property was sold by the Dreyfuss estate for $11 million. 

Purchased by Edmund Dreyfuss and Blake Construction in 1966 from Georgetown University, Halcyon House has been held by the Dreyfuss family and its business concerns for almost 46 years, the longest tenure of any of the property’s deed holders, including its builder and original 1787 occupant, Benjamin Stoddert, the first Secretary of the Navy and friend of George Washington.

Sculptor John Dreyfuss, who led the renovation and reconstruction work during the 1980s and 1990s at the house and its gardens, as well as building a lower studio and hall, received an award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for his efforts. At one time, Dreyfuss also headed up the Francis Scott Key Foundation, a non-profit which completed Francis Scott Key Park and the Star-Spangled Banner Monument on M Street, now part of the National Park System, next to Key Bridge.

S&R Foundation, which last year purchased another historic Georgetown home, Evermay, is a non-profit founded in Washington, D.C., by Dr. Sachiko Kuno and Dr. Ryuji Ueno in 2000 “to encourage and stimulate scientific research and artistic endeavors among young individuals.” The foundation plans to operate its day-to-day business from Evermay on 28th Street in Georgetown. The married couple, Ueno and Kuno, founded Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a global biopharmaceutical company based in Bethesda. Sucampo is one of the sponsors of the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

In addition, with its Japanese-American mission, S&R Foundation is hosting its first “Annual Overtures Artist Concert Series,” which will feature seven award-winning, world-class performing artists at the Kennedy Center as part of the festival’s centennial celebration, honoring 100 years of the gift of trees from Tokyo to Washington — Wednesday, April 4 – Sunday, April 8, Tuesday, April 10, Thursday, April 12; all performances will begin at 7:30 p.m.

Viola Drath’s Alleged Killer Remains in Psych Ward
• March 22, 2012

A D.C. Superior Court judge ordered Albrecht Muth, accused of killing his 91-year-old wife Viola Drath, held for another month during a mental health hearing last week. He has already been formally indicted for murder.

Muth remains in Saint Elizabeth’s psychiatric hospital for a competency test. Some want to make sure he is not faking his mental condition. He was said to have been hearing the voices of angels and seeing visions. Muth had previously protested his incarceration, saying it was all a plot by Iranian spies, and that he was an officer inthe Iraqi Army.

Drath and Muth lived in a townhouse near Q and 32nd Streets. Muth, who has plead not guilty, is scheduled to appear in court on April 25 to see if he is fit to be on trial at all.

ANC2E Full Report, January 30, 2012February 7, 2012
• February 7, 2012

ANC Report: Full House on DCFEMS, DCRA, Pepco, Food Trucks and Evermay.

Got all that? In an especially full and varied meeting Jan, 30, Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E tackled a packed line-up:

**Fire & EMS**

Chief Kenneth Ellerbe, of D.C. Fire & Emergency Medical Services, fresh with his department’s safety and health demonstrations at the Georgetown Safeway Jan. 28, addressed the meeting and stressed the role of firefighters who are also paramedics and emergency responders.?Ellerbe’s insistence on the use of the full name?and not just “DCFD” (the chief ordered uniforms and t-shirts must show the full acronym, DCFEMS)? has some firemen and members of the union bothered. But the chief continues to talk about the department’s “soft presence on the streets” and the 161,000 calls in 2011: 130,000 were medical, and only 500 were real house fires. Ellerbe also said the department had gotten 25 new ambulances and defended the newly proposed firefighters’ working hours of?12 hours on, 12 off.

**Building Collapse Still Unknown**

Nicholas Majett, director of the D.C. Department of Regulatory and Consumer Affairs, talked about how the agency “touches everyone,” and then dealt with the partial collapse of the building at 1424 Wisconsin Ave., N.W., as well as regulations on the newly popular food trucks around the city. The partial collapse happening Thanksgiving Day, and there is a stop-work order on the site. The owner must hire a structural engineer to determine the cause?a possible conflict of interest that commissioners found troubling and said so to DCRA’s Bill Davidson and his boss. Citing a construction collapse of a Wisconsin Avenue building ten years ago, which was owned by the same businessman and about one block to the south, commissioner Bill Starrels recalled, “The owner has a history as a bad actor.” Owner Robert Solomon of the 1422 Wisconsin Ave. building complained about a window being bricked up. The cause of the collapse remains undetermined, and DCRA needs to know if it is to issue a permit for rebuilding at the site, which was slated to became a Z-Burger eatery.

**Where Food Trucks May Park**

As for food trucks, the commissioners voted to ask that they not park on residential streets. Current law allows them to park in any legal spot.?

**Evermay to House S&R Foundation**

Evermay’s zoning variance request was approved in a most collegial manner. Evermay LLC requested that the S&R Foundation, headed by the property’s new owners, biotech business partners and spouses Ryuji Ueno and Sachiko Kuno, be allowed to operate from the estate at R and 28th Streets with strict restrictions on frequency of events and number of employees. The foundation’s mission encourages musical and scientific excellence while it promotes American and Japanese ties and studies responses to disasters, such as tsunamis or earthquakes. S&R Foundation attorney Alice Gregg Haase listed the restrictions, which include parking all cars on Evermay’s land, no outdoor amplified music, no more than 100 persons on regular events and more. The ANC voted to review the approval after five years, not seven as was requested by the foundation. “This is the way it should work,” said ANC chair Ron Lewis. The zoning commission will make its final decision at the end of this month.

**Hey, Be Alert: Lock It**

The monthly police report by Metropolitan Police Department officer Kathryn Fitzgerald stated the obvious: lock your doors and secure your items. One business cash register was robbed when employees left keys in the register; another left its business office doors unlocked and was robbed. (The perps were caught.) As for iPhone thefts, need we say more?

**Better Wiring in the Hood**

Pepco officials were also at the meeting to discuss outages and how the utility is switching neighborhoods to different electrical grids, such as Hillandale, and upgrading lines as well?all to improve service in Burleith.

**Hang On, O and P**

For the O and P Street Project: the 3400 block of P Street should be complete now.? Check [FixingOandPStreets.com](http://www.fixingoandpstreets.com) for updates, such as a utilities turn-off next week.

Quick question: Who said the following? “Rocky’s Report should be taken with a grain of salt.” It was ANC chair Ron Lewis speaking of Georgetown University’s more personable approach to campus crime reporting.? More quotes this and next week on the zoning commission’s decision?expected momentarily?on the university’s 2010-2020 campus plan.

Frank Randolph
• November 3, 2011

Walking into Frank Randolph’s house makes you aware of what a great interior designer can do. Randolph lives in a house once occupied by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. What he managed to do with it (not to it) is to create marvelous spaces with impeccably designed interiors. This is the hallmark of his work. All is classical, spare without being minimal and luminous.

Frank Randolph’s living room is one of the most beautiful spaces in Georgetown. It is high ceilinged, and during remodeling Randolph dropped the windows to the floor, creating real French windows. They look out onto a lovely garden below. Graced by arches, the living room contains some of the furniture Randolph has designed himself as well as a pair of 18th-century painted French screens. Small porcelain Chinese bowls and other objects are placed on tables and the mantle. He describes them all as inexpensive pieces. Randolph likes to change the arrangement every few months.

A real Washingtonian who grew up near Georgetown and attended Western High (now Duke Ellington), Randolph is the rarest of decorators, a self-taught man. The antiques that Randolph works with are mostly Swedish and Danish pieces from the 18th and 19th century. “People want to walk into a house with less of the darkness associated with antiques,” Randolph says. “They want a home to have lightness and happiness.” In his own home you can see he practices and lives with what he preaches.

“Clients don’t come to me for a strictly contemporary or modern look,” he says. “My passions are evenly divided. As an interior designer one must include things that are practical but still wonderful and beautiful. You cannot sell 19th-century chairs anymore because they break.” Randolph’s own dining room chairs are modeled on antique pieces, but in light wood and are extremely sturdy. He says that if you cannot find a piece, you can often have it reproduced.

Instinctively generous, Randolph even has a few good words to say about Martha Stewart: “I admire her way of getting the general public involved in presentation of food and of things you have in your home.”

It is rare for an architect to speak of lessons learned from a decorator. However, Georgetown architect Christian Zapatka speaks of learning from Frank Randolph and how sometimes covering a window rather than merely exposing it can create more. It is a lesson Zapatka is carrying out in his own newly designed home.

“Making people happy is rewarding,” Randolph says. “But you have to get the architecture right. Thomas Jefferson was the first American interior designer, he went to bed thinking about it and he woke up and rearranged the furniture!”

GEORGETOWN’S ANTIQUES:

Christian Zapatka: Reinventing the Georgetown Townhouse
Frank Randolph: Interior Designer Extraordinaire
John Rosselli: Georgetown’s Antique Aficionado
Marston Luce: In Search of Elegance
Scandinavian Antiques & Living: International Accents
Susquehanna Antique Company: Redefining Tradition
Sixteen Fifty Nine: A Mid-Century Renaissance

John Rosselli
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-The venerable firm of John Rosselli & Associates opened its first shop in New York City 50 years ago. Its Wisconsin Avenue Georgetown branch has been in business for 10 years. According to Jonathan Gargiulo, who commutes between New York and Washington, the shop is a designer resource. Clients often visit the shop with decorators. When you look at the website of John Rosselli, it’s fabrics that dominate. And that seems to be a bellwether of where the antique trade is going.

What has happened is that buyers are less interested in what is called “smalls,” the smaller objects one would find dotting the interior of every antique store. Those footstools, end tables, and bibelots were the bread and butter of the antique business, with clients coming in periodically adding to their collections. Garguilo says, “It used to be I would spend all day wrapping and putting in bags for clients’ silver, vases and small pictures. Now people decorate with less, they are more interested in an important piece of furniture, and reproductions as well.”

The economy has not helped the antique business and several dealers did not survive the downturn. But the economy is coming back and there is a different kind of client: one made much more savvy due to the popularity of the television “Road Show” series. That, and eBay has made his customers more discerning about prices as related by Garguilo. It also makes it harder for antique stores to pick up bargains the way they used to.

Peter Quinn, who helped start the John Rosselli store in D.C., has what you find in the best antique dealers: a passion for history. That is what is lacking in many of the younger buyers today who are much more part of the information age and do not take the time to learn, for instance, about the hallmarks on silver. That is what motivates the insider in the antique business, the unfolding narrative of where a piece was made and when. He also says Washington can be a tough market, a bit fickle and not too adventurous.

Quality is the underlying value in the best antique stores and John Rosselli & Associates is cited by everyone I have spoken with as one of the best places in D.C. to stop by, with or without your decorator.

GEORGETOWN’S ANTIQUES:

Christian Zapatka: Reinventing the Georgetown Townhouse
Frank Randolph: Interior Designer Extraordinaire
John Rosselli: Georgetown’s Antique Aficionado
Marston Luce: In Search of Elegance
Scandinavian Antiques & Living: International Accents
Susquehanna Antique Company: Redefining Tradition
Sixteen Fifty Nine: A Mid-Century Renaissance