Repackaged from the Summer 2020 edition of Long & Foster’s Luxury Homes magazine
A New Luxury Residential Building at 1331 Maryland Ave, SW, Takes Its Place Among D.C.’s Monuments
Modern traditionalist architecture icon Robert A.M. Stern and his Partners have redefined luxury living in New York City and beyond, including in the nation’s capital.
The New York City skyline thrilled Robert A.M. Stern as a boy, when he would ride the subway from his family’s home in Brooklyn into Manhattan. Stern would angle for a spot in the first car and watch for Manhattan to appear through the front window as the train emerged on a viaduct over the Gowanus Canal. There it was, the skyline made famous in movies of the 1920s and 30s. Decades later, as a renowned architect, Stern would make his own mark on the city.
“I never tired of that view, and I still never tire of that view,” said Stern, who, with his firm Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA), has rewritten the definition of residential luxury real estate.
A Rarefied Company
Some of New York’s most prestigious addresses are RAMSA designs. In 2019, when a billionaire investor paid $238 million for a penthouse in RAMSA’s 220 Central Park South, it was the most expensive home ever sold in the United States— a record that stands. The firm frequently appears on top-10-most-expensive-homes lists. In the prior year, four of the 10 highest priced U.S. home sales were in RAMSA-designed buildings, according to Forbes.com.
Recently, Stern, 81, and his firm have made a significant contribution to the residential architectural language of the U.S. capital as well, with a new 14-story luxury building at 1331 Maryland Avenue, SW, which opened to residents in the past year. Some units rent for more than $20,000 monthly. It’s the second residential building the firm has designed in the nation’s capital, after Arris, a high-end apartment building at the Yards, the site of the former Navy Yard Annex, with views of Nationals Park.
Several office buildings dotting the city are also RAMSA projects, including a nine-story mixed-use building in the Sixteenth Street Historic District that houses the Third Church of Christ, Scientist and a classical office building at 600 Thirteenth Street, NW.