Break-In News: The Watergate Hotel Closes for 'Dramatic' Renovation

August 7, 2007 at 2:40 PM | by barbarab | 0 Comments

It's official: The Watergate Hotel closed last week for a $170 million renovation. Hotel Chatter reported in early June that a major renovation was in the works. At the time, details were nonexistent, except that the hotel's website was only taking renovations through June 30. The hotel ended up staying open through July 30.

Details remain sketchy. Michael Darby, principal of Monumental Realty, told The Washington Post that he plans to create a luxury hotel "probably higher-end than any other hotel in Washington." Probably? The website is more emphatic:

We are currently undergoing a dramatic renovation and will not be accepting guests again until late 2009. While we are creating the most luxurious hotel in Washington, we ask for your patience.

That sounds more like it.

Definitive plans include reducing the number of rooms and bringing in a new partner and operating partner. We tried to elicit more details from several avenues. Spa? Pool? Designer? No confirmations there -- yet. We haven't forgotten that Watergate reporter's mantra: Follow the money.

A little hotel history after the jump.

The hotel is famous around the world for its connection to the 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters. That bungled burglery -- the five perps were apprehended on the spot -- contributed to the demise of Richard Nixon's presidency two years later.

The hotel is one of six buildings in the mixed-use Watergate complex that was designed by the Italian architect and urban planner Luigi Moretti, a modernist who early in his career worked for Mussolini.

More recently, the hotel nearly fell victim to the condo conversion craze. Its current owners, Monumental Realty, purchased the hotel in 2004 with the idea of converting it to upscale co-op apartments. Some of the Watergate's current residents fought those plans in court.

Oh, and the hotel will keep the name. We would hope so. It's probably one of the most successfully, if accidently, branded hotel names in modern history. So much so, news that the hotel was closing made papers across the country. (The Washington Times even ran a slideshow.) The International Herald Tribune also ran an item.

[Photo: Edwardaggie98]

Related Stories:
· Break-In News: Watergate Hotel Closing at the End of the Month for Renovations [HotelChatter]

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