Andrew Mellon Building

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Andrew Mellon Building, also known as McCormick Apartments, is a Beaux-Arts luxury apartment building on Embassy Row in Washington, DC, at 1785 Massachusetts Avenue NW. Built in 1915–1917 and designed by Jules Henri de Sibour, it was one of the city’s first luxury apartment buildings and was meant to blend with surrounding Beaux-Arts architecture. The six units originally housed more than forty servants.

Among its residents was Andrew W. Mellon, who served as Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932 and lived on the top floor from 1922 until his death in 1937. Mellon helped fund the Mellon Plan, supported the arts, and funded the National Gallery of Art. In 1936 he paid $21 million for art collected by Sir Joseph Duveen, the largest art deal of its time.

The building changed hands several times: Katherine Dexter McCormick deeded it to the American Council on Education in 1950, then it passed to The Brookings Institution in 1970. The National Trust for Historic Preservation acquired it in 1976. It had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

In 2009 the National Trust put the Mellon Building up for sale, but withdrew it in 2010 to focus on repairs. In 2013 the Trust sold the building to the American Enterprise Institute for $36.5 million, with plans to lease space on the top two floors of the Watergate Office Building. The National Trust still holds a permanent preservation easement protecting both the interior and exterior of the building.