RSS FeedCribs XXVIII: The View Is Better Up Here (Sonata Condo Penthouse)
We do love penthouses…after all we’ve lived in them in Penn Quarter and the view is fantastic! Today we’re looking one neighborhood to the north, the Mount Vernon Triangle, at the top story of The Sonata (301 Massachusetts Ave NW) which is one of the pre-recession condo buildings built in the neighborhood before real estate financing dried up.
Unit 1203 at 301 Massachusetts Ave NW is a single story penthouse with a private roof deck. This unit on the northeast corner of the building comes with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and 2 parking lots. You do get a view southeast towards the Capitol building from the roof deck. The asking price is $1.05 million. At 1360 square feet and after backing out $80,000 for the parking spots, that’s $713 per square foot on sales price. The condo fee is $929 per month and that amounts to 68 cents per square foot per month which is definitely an efficient building run rate compared to some of the other condos in the area. This unit is listed by Urban Brokers and is also listed for rent for $4,800 per month.
We profiled this unit before when it sold in 2009!
301 Massachusetts Ave NW – Unit 1203 – MLS #DC8762196 [Redfin listing] [MRIS Virtual Tour]
Great Pumpkin
It’s almost Halloween, have you got your pumpkin yet? Be sure to stop by the farmers market tomorrow from 3pm-7pm (8th and D Sts., NW) to stock up. And, don’t forget, they’re not just decoration, you can eat them too! Here’s a recipe in honor of Momofuku‘s recent opening that we look forward to trying:
Momofuku Carrot Layer Cake with Pumpkin Ganache
Momofuku Now Open At CityCenter In Downtown DC (1090 I St NW)
Momofuku opened over the weekend at 1090 I St NW (corner of 11th and I St NW). Momofuku’s food menu sports all sorts of tasty noodle and bun dishes while the beverage menu sports a limited but capable selection of beer, wine, cider, and cocktails. Washingtonian profiled David Chang, Momofuku’s propriertor, in August of 2014. Milk Bar, the dessert adjunct to Momofuku, opened on Friday and as of Sunday night still sported a line around the block.
Staff at the host’s stand indicated that limited reservations to Momofuku could be made online at OpenTable or using the restaurant’s reservation system (we don’t see the link yet) and the majority of slots are available as walk-ins. The restaurant is open for dinner Sunday through Thursday, 5 pm to 11 pm and Friday through Saturday, 5 pm to Midnight. The restaurant’s entrance is on 11th St NW and as shown in the photo above there is no signage quite yet. Like the Eighteenth Street Lounge, you just have to know where it is.
Momofuku
1090 I St NW
202-602-1832
History on Foot: National Building Museum
One of the largest and most impressive buildings in our neighborhood, The National Building Museum (401 F St., NW) has a long history of grandeur in our city.
Thanks to the history provided on the museum’s web site, here is insight into the building’s past:
The National Building Museum is America’s leading cultural institution devoted to the history and impact of the built environment.
Built between 1882 and 1887, the project began following a Senate Appropriations Committee approval of $250,000 to purchase a suitable site and construct a fireproof building for the U.S. Pension Bureau’s headquarters. U.S. Army Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs was appointed as both the architect and engineer for the building. The building was Meigs’ last and most important architectural work and the one of which he was most proud.
The building was designed for two distinct functions: to house the Pension Bureau and to provide a suitably grand space for Washington’s social and political functions. The design was inspired by two Roman palaces. The exterior is modeled closely on the brick, monumentally-scaled Palazzo Farnese, completed to Michelangelo’s specifications in 1589. The building’s interior, with its open, arcaded galleries surrounding a central hall, is reminiscent of the early-sixteenth-century Palazzo della Cancelleria. For the colossal Corinthian columns that divide the Great Hall, Meigs took his inspiration from the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome built by Michelangelo in the mid-sixteenth century.
The Pension Building continued to serve as office space for a variety of government tenants through the 1960s. In 1969, the Pension Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Congress passed a resolution in 1978 calling for the preservation of the building as a national treasure, and a 1980 Act of Congress mandated the creation of the National Building Museum as a private, nonprofit educational institution.