The Fairfax at Embassy Row | |
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The Fairfax at Embassy Row Exterior
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General information | |
Location | Washington, D.C., United States |
Address | 2100 Massachusetts Avenue |
Coordinates | 38°54′38″N 77°2′50″W / 38.91056°N 77.04722°WCoordinates: 38°54′38″N 77°2′50″W / 38.91056°N 77.04722°W |
Opening | 1927 |
Technical details | |
Floor count | 8 |
Design and construction | |
Architect | B. Stanley Simmons |
Other information | |
Number of rooms | 259 |
Number of restaurants | 2 |
Website | |
www.fairfaxwashingtondc.com |
The Fairfax at Embassy Row is a historic luxury hotel located at 2100 Massachusetts Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., in the United States. The Fairfax is designated as a contributing property to the Dupont Circle Historic District and the Massachusetts Avenue Historic District.
The Fairfax Hotel opened in 1927 and was designed by architect B. Stanley Simmons. Colonel H. Grady Gore and his wife bought the hotel in 1932. It operated as a combination transient/residential hotel and was the home of numerous government figures. Famous residents included Mrs. Henry Cabot Lodge, Admiral and Mrs. Chester William Nimitz, and Senator John L. McClellan. Future President George H.W. Bush and his parents, Senator and Mrs. Prescott Bush, lived at The Fairfax when in Washington. Future Vice President Al Gore's family lived in the three-bedroom suite on the hotel's top floor for a total of twenty years during his youth. Gore's father Albert Gore, Sr. was a senator from Tennessee and was also the cousin of the owner. The Fairfax was also a popular residence of families in the Foreign Service, as it was the only establishment with kitchens that fell within the limited temporary-housing allowance provided by the State Department. The hotel hosted the first inaugural breakfast for President Dwight Eisenhower in January 1953.
Grady Gore and his wife Jamie sold the hotel to John B. Coleman in 1977 for $5 million. Coleman soon invested $10 in a renovation, and then renamed The Fairfax The Ritz-Carlton Washington, D.C. in 1982, having licensed the name from Gerald Blakely, owner of the Ritz-Carlton in Boston, for a fee of 1.5 percent of the Washington hotel's annual gross revenue. When the modern Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company was created in the mid-1980s, they assumed management of the hotel. The hotel was in bankruptcy from 1986 until 1988. Al Anwa USA, controlled by Saudi Arabian Sheik Abdul Aziz bin Ibrahim, bought the hotel in 1989 and again renovated it at a cost of $15 million. Ritz-Carlton and Al Anwa eventually fell out over how much the management company should be paid to run the hotel in what proved to be a bitter legal dispute that began in 1995 and lasted two years.