The Woodward (Woodward Apartments)

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The Woodward Apartments were finished in 1913 and designed by the architectural firm Harding and Upman. It was built for and named after the retailer S. Walter Woodward. Woodward owned a dry goods operation, called Boston Dry Goods Store, but moved to DC because he saw the potential for a successful real estate business in DC. Woodward and his partner Alvin Lothrop also opened one of the first department stores in the city. Woodward had six apartment buildings, two of them luxury apartment buildings and four smaller ones. The Woodward became the most well-known, due to its unique architecture, including its rooftop pavilion which is visible from the street below. 

The apartment building was designed in a U-shape that was modified to fit the site at Connecticut Avenue and Ashmead Place NW, just south of Rock Creek Park in the Kalorama neighborhood. It was designed in the Spanish Colonial style and was one of the first apartment buildings in this style in DC. Its main entrance facing Connecticut Avenue has a baroque design and is three stories high, with a terracotta entablature and pairs of columns on either side. Its corner pavilions on the front of the building have prominent hipped roofs with red tiles.

The building originally had 45 apartments that ranged from two to six bedrooms. The apartment building came with several amenities, such as a rooftop garden, summer pavilion, a mail chute on each floor, a wall safe in each apartment, social hall for parties, billiard room, and a barber shop. The building remained unchanged until it was sold in 1968. It then was renovated and reopened in 1970. In 1973, the apartment building was converted into one of the first condominiums in DC.

DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)
Within Kalorama Triangle Historic District