An eight bedroom, 12 bath house on Foxhall has been chosen as the sixth DC Design House.
By Laura Wainman
This newly built house on Foxhall Rd. will become a design playground in February and March for Washington's leading interior designers. (Photo by Ken Wyner)
It’s that time of year again, when Washington interior designers compete to showcase their aesthetic palettes at the DC Design House. What began in 2008 as a unique design show-house fundraiser for Children’s National Medical Center, is now one of the leading fundraisers for CNMC, having raised more than $800,000 in five years.
This year marks the 6th annual DC Design House benefiting CNMC, and is the first year that a newly built house has been chosen for the location, allowing the designers to truly showcase how they take a room from start to impeccably-designed finish. The house, located at 2507 Foxhall Rd. NW, was just finished by GTM Architects and offers 14,000 square feet, eight bedrooms, eight full bathrooms and four half baths. Approximately 20 spaces will be available to transform. With empty rooms, hardwood or tiled floors on all five levels and painted walls, designers will be working with paint, wallpaper, rugs, art, furniture and window treatments to create their design showcases.
Skip Singleton, co-founder of DC Design House, said the house was chosen because it was in “a new neighborhood for the design house, with good visibility from Foxhall Rd for the [DC Design House] sign, which helps raise money for the cause and lots of rooms to design.”
The main floor leads from a marble foyer to the formal living and dining rooms, with fireplaces and bay windows for natural light, family room, library, kitchen and back yard with an infinity pool. The upstairs features a master suite with private bathroom and sitting room, three additional bedrooms, each with a bathroom and a laundry room. The third floor offers a loft with skylights, a wet bar and a balcony overlooking the city, plus two more bedrooms and a bathroom. The lower level contains billiard and recreation rooms, a second kitchen, laundry room, mudroom, powder room and a two-car garage, while the second lower level includes a media room, exercise room with sauna and full bath, and two bedroom suites, plus access to the pool.
Interested local designers participate in a walk-through November 12 or 13 from 10 to 2, to determine which rooms they are interested in applying to design. Then they will have a little over two weeks to create their proposals before presentation boards are due on December 3. The design advisers, including Ann Lambeth, Kelley Proxmire and Frank Babb Randolph, will review the boards and notify the winners by December 14. The public will be able to see the starting point on February 23 at the bare bones tour for $5, and then the house will be closed for work from February 25 to March 29. A preview party will be hosted on April 13, and the house will reopen to the public from April 14 to May 12, with proceeds from the $25 tickets benefiting CNMC.
