In February 1931, D.C. Permit to Build #140167 was issued to Kennedy-Warren, Inc. to erect an eight-story apartment hotel at an estimated cost of $3,200,000. Architect Joseph Younger's original design of the Art Deco-style Kennedy-Warren apartment building included 441 apartments, with a total of 2,029 rooms, but the Great Depression and the financial difficulties it created resulted in only half of the original design being built.
A pre-construction Washington Star article noted an "ultra modern innovation" in the design: a circulation system that would pull cool air from the adjoining parkland and pump it into the building during the hot summer months. When the Kennedy-Warren was completed, it was considered the largest and most architecturally significant apartment building in the city.
In 1935, the Kennedy-Warren received a rear left wing addition. The supervising architect for the addition, A.H. Sonnemann, followed Joseph Younger's original design and constructed a portion of the uncompleted half. This addition brought an end to an unofficial hiatus on large-scale apartment building construction that had followed the completion of the original section of the Kennedy-Warren. It added 107 units to the original building, bringing the total to 317 of the planned 441. The Kennedy-Warren was the grand finale of pre-World War II development in the Connecticut Avenue apartment building corridor, and presently stands in excellent condition.
DC Inventory: January 17, 1990
National Register: September 7, 1994
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