The Hay-Adams

The two men who gave the hotel its name never saw it. John Hay, Lincoln's private secretary and later Secretary of State, and Henry Adams, historian and descendant of two presidents, had adjoining houses on the north side of Lafayette Square, designed for them by H. H. Richardson in the 1880s. Henry James and Theodore Roosevelt came to dinner there. The houses were demolished in 1927, and the following year the developer Harry Wardman opened The Hay-Adams in Washington, D.C. on the site, keeping the names on the door.

History

Wardman was the most prolific builder in 1920s Washington and Mihran Mesrobian, an Armenian architect trained in Constantinople, was his house designer; the pair also produced the Carlton (now the St. Regis) a block away. The Hay-Adams opened in 1928 as a residential hotel, with apartments for long-term tenants as well as transient rooms. Wardman lost his fortune in the crash of 1929 and the hotel passed through other hands, but it kept its position at the top of Washington society. Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, Sinclair Lewis and Ethel Barrymore were early guests.

In January 2009 Barack Obama and his family stayed at the hotel for the days before his inauguration, before moving to Blair House and then across the square. It is the stay most visitors ask about, and the hotel still points to the Lafayette Square windows when they do.

Architecture and design

Mesrobian gave the building an Italian Renaissance exterior in limestone and brick, with arched windows on the ground floor and a cornice heavy enough to be seen from the square. Inside, the lobby and the public rooms have walnut panelling, Doric columns and ornamental plaster ceilings in Tudor and Elizabethan patterns, a mix the 1920s thought appropriate for a house named after two gentlemen of letters. Successive renovations have kept the panelling and the ceilings and replaced everything behind them.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has around 145 rooms and suites on eight floors. The point of the building is the view: rooms on the south side look over Lafayette Square at the White House, with the Washington Monument behind it, and the higher the floor, the clearer the line. Rooms on the other sides face St. John's Church, the yellow Episcopal church where presidents since Madison have worshipped, or the office streets of downtown. Decoration is traditional, with mouldings, silk fabrics and framed prints, and the suites add sitting rooms with fireplaces.

Dining

The Lafayette, the ground-floor restaurant, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner under the windows that face the square; its power breakfast is a Washington institution in its own right. Off the Record, the bar in the basement, is where lobbyists, journalists and staffers drink under caricatures of the people they work for. The bar's name is a joke everyone in the city understands.

Weddings and events

The rooftop, called Top of the Hay, is the main event space, with terraces and floor-to-ceiling windows that frame the White House and the monuments; it takes receptions, dinners and weddings. Below it the hotel has a series of smaller panelled rooms for meetings and private dinners. Weddings at The Hay-Adams tend to be small and formal, with the ceremony and reception on the rooftop and guests staying in the house. It is the luxury hotel in Washington, D.C. that couples choose when they want the White House in the photographs.

Location

800 16th Street NW is the north-west corner of Lafayette Square, diagonally across the park from the White House, with St. John's Church next door. The Treasury, the Renwick Gallery and the Corcoran are within a few blocks, and the K Street offices start a block north. Farragut West and McPherson Square Metro stations are each about five minutes on foot. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is about 6 km away across the Potomac, and Amtrak trains arrive at Union Station, roughly 3 km east.