Patrick O’Connell: ‘Forty-seven years. Give me a little trust’
The Town of Washington’s Architectural Review Board tabled an application from The Inn at Little Washington to build a tower addition to The Parsonage guesthouse, despite pleas from chef proprietor Patrick O’Connell to move the project along.
“The only objection you actually are able to make is incompatibility with the architecture of this town — this town is impossible to characterize,” O’Connell said, speaking from the audience at last Wednesday’s meeting. “It’s a mishmash, as someone said, the great bastardization of all the kinds of architecture in the world.”
The Parsonage, so named because it is next to Trinity Episcopal Church, is an 1850s Victorian with six guest rooms that sits across the street from the main entrance to the inn.
During the inn’s presentation, its architect Michael Franck said the intention of the three-story, 13×13 foot-area tower is to allow a parlor that is not being used by guests to be converted into another suite.
The first floor of the tower addition will be a bathroom, said Franck, who has worked on the White House and other historic buildings in Washington, D.C., winning awards for historic preservation, according to his website. The second story will be a view tower.
“The addition will add interest to the building as well as the streetscape, and avoid having a box-like projection simply to house a bathroom,” Alicia Fatula, project and design coordinator for the inn, wrote in the application.
Franck said he tried to stay consistent with the house’s Victorian style in his designs. The addition is “relatively small,” he said, and will not be as large as it appears in the renderings. The shape will mimic that of a bell tower, according to the application.
Drawing of current front facade of The Parsonage. (Courtesy/Michael Franck Architect)
Drawing of proposed addition of the tower. (Courtesy/Michael Franck Architect)
Concerns of ARB
The board voted 4-1 to table the application until its next meeting May 19, with member Wes Moore the only dissenter.
The chief concerns of the board were how the tower would meld with the rest of the town, and a desire for more detailed plans.
“I find myself craving a little bit more detail on this in terms of the design, not necessarily that I think it won’t work … but it’s hard for me to conceptualize exactly what it would look like,” chair Deborah Harris said. “I think I would like to see more of what the actual slope of the roof line looks like.”
Board member Nanette Edwards said this is “new territory for us,” and that there are no specifics for towers or steeples in the town’s guidelines. She said part of the beauty of The Parsonage is that it’s “a stately, elegant building and very symmetrical.
“It’s just kind of hard for me to imagine this tower in these renditions, because, to me, it detracts from the beauty of the house itself,” Edwards said.
O’Connell said he is confident that when finished, the tower will be “a spectacular addition to the town.” He asked the board to pass the application along because the inn has made plans to close in July to allow construction to take place.
“Forty-seven years. Give me a little trust, please,” O’Connell said, referring to the number of years since he opened the inn.
“If we want to pick apart the work of … one of the most expensive architects in America, who worked for the state department, on the windows of the White House, I mean it’s painful, the attitude that it isn’t good enough,” O’Connell said.
“It’s not getting any easier to spend money and hire great talent and take this cause further if there isn’t an understanding and a trust that we’re making this town more beautiful every day,” he said.
