Marriott Wardman Park

The original Wardman Park Hotel, in 1922, before the addition of the Wardman Tower.

Built between 1917 and 1918 by local developer Harry Wardman and designed by local architect Frank Russell White, the Wardman Park Hotel was an eight-story, red brick structure modeled on The Homestead resort in Virginia.[3] The hotel was the largest in the city, with 1200 rooms and 625 baths. It was nicknamed Wardman's Folly, due to its location far outside the developed area of Washington.[3]

It opened on November 23, 1918,[4] just days after the Armistice with Germany ending World War I. No elaborate opening festivities were held, however, as all public gatherings had been made illegal while the city was in the grips of the 1918 flu pandemic then sweeping the globe. The hotel was hugely successful, due to the housing shortage caused by Washington's growth during World War I.[3]

In 1928, the hotel was expanded with an eight-story, 350-room residential-hotel annex, designed by architect Mihran Mesrobian. That building is today the only surviving portion of the original Wardman Park, known as the Wardman Tower and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[5] Wardman was forced to sell the hotel in 1931, due to the Great Depression, to Washington Properties.[3]

Before the United States' entry into World War II, a British spy named Cynthia operated out of the premises as she spied on the Vichy French Embassy. At night, she would visit her lover, an embassy employee whom she had compromised, and steal top-secret documents, transporting them back to the hotel and photographing them in a lab she had set up in her room.[6]

The hotel contained a full service drug store/pharmacy; the pharmacist was known as Doc Wardman. There was also a U.S. Post Office and in the basement one could shop at a butcher, grocery store, and dry cleaner. Despite World War II, one could always get meat, butter, and other rationed goods in the basement.

In the late 1940s, the Olympic sized hotel pool was utilized by the 5th Marine Reserves who were taught how to swim with their clothes on. Images of Army Special Forces soldiers rappelling down the side of the Sheraton Park Hotel have also been located, taken during a training exercise on October 3, 1962.[6]

The first televised broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press took place in 1947 in the Wardman Tower, where host Lawrence Spivak was a resident. Other shows broadcast from the hotel include The Camel News Caravan, The Today Show (Frank Blair segments), and The Arthur Murray Dance Program.[6]

In 1953, Washington Properties sold the hotel to Sheraton Hotels.[3] Renamed the Sheraton-Park Hotel, the largely residential hotel was gradually converted to house mainly overnight guests.[3] Substantial additions were made to the property, transforming it into a full-scale convention hotel, including large new ballrooms and the 1964 addition known as the Motor Inn and later known as the Park Tower.

New main building of the hotel, completed in 1980.

By the late 1970s, it was decided that the 1918 main building was outdated and unable to be modernized. Construction began in 1977 on a modern replacement hotel, immediately adjacent on the property. When it opened in 1980, as the Sheraton Washington Hotel, the original building closed and was demolished.[3]

In 1998, following a protracted lawsuit against Sheraton by the hotel's then owners, John Hancock Insurance and the Sumitomo Corporation, Marriott International took over management of the property, renaming the hotel the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.[5] In 1998, Thayer Lodging Group of Annapolis, Maryland purchased the hotel for $227 million and spent another $100 million on renovations.[7] In 2005, Thayer Lodging Group sold the hotel to JBG Smith and CIM Group for $300 million.[8]

On November 20, 2008, while giving a speech at the hotel to the Federalist Society, United States Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed. He lost consciousness but was talking when he was led away to George Washington University Hospital.[9]

In 2014, JBG redeveloped the largely unoccupied western portion of the hotel's property, constructing a huge apartment building designed to mirror the historic Wardman Tower. It was first named Wardman West, but was later renamed The Woodley. The units were sold for a record-breaking $920K each.[10]

In 2015, JBG renovated floors 3-8 of the Wardman Tower into 32 luxury condominiums. The first and second floors remain part of the hotel.[11] The condos are separate from the hotel and do not share an entrance or connecting interior passageways. The project was financed by a $54 million investment from North America Sekisui House LLC (NASH), the North American division of the largest homebuilding corporation in Japan, in February 2014.[12] As of 2020, property sales of units are represented by TTR Sotheby's International Realty, with prices starting at US$2,495,000.[13] One of the condominium units sold for US$8.4 million.[14]

In June 2016, JBG filed plans with the city zoning commission to close the hotel and replace it with a 1300-unit residential development. They withdraw that plan in September 2016.[10]

In January 2018, JBG Group and CIM Group, which had owned roughly equal interests in the hotel, sold a controlling interest in the property (66.67%) to Pacific Life Insurance Company, with JBG and CIM each retaining 16.67%.[15] In February 2020, CIM Group sold their interest in the hotel.[10]

In March 2020, the hotel closed temporarily, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On June 22, 2020, the hotel ownership notified the workers' union of its intention to potentially close the hotel permanently.[16]

On September 3, 2020, Pacific Life petitioned in a Delaware court to dissolve its ownership partnership with JBG. The two companies resolved their dispute on October 2, 2020.[17]

On October 6, 2020, Marriott sued Pacific Life (which now owned 80% of the property) and JBG Smith (which owned 20%). Marriott claimed the two companies were intentionally failing to invest contractually obligated capital in the hotel, in order to force the property to close, so they could redevelop the land as a high-end residential property, even though Marriott had a contract to manage the hotel through 2029, followed by three automatic 10-year extensions.[17]

On November 3, 2020, it was reported that JBG Smith had transferred its ownership stake in the hotel to Pacific Life on October 1, as the value had been reduced to zero.[18]

On January 11, 2021, the owning entity, Wardman Hotel Owner LLC, a subsidiary of Pacific Life, filed for bankruptcy and announced the permanent closure of the hotel and the severing of the management contract with Marriott.[19] Pacific Life announced their intention to sell the property for redevelopment.

The Wardman Tower building has been home to a number of politicians and other public figures, including two U.S. presidents:[6]

• President Lyndon B. Johnson for about 45 days as Vice-President
• Vice President Spiro Agnew
• Vice President Charles Curtis
• Actress Marlene Dietrich
• Senator Bob Dole
• President Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Former airline Trans World Airlines (TWA) President Jack Frye and wife, Helen
• U.S. Attorney Paul M. Gagnon
• Senator Barry Goldwater
• Secretary of State Cordell Hull
• President Herbert Hoover
• Socialite Perle Mesta
• Senator Chuck Robb
• Chief Justice Frederick M. Vinson
• Vice President Henry Wallace
• Chief Justice Earl Warren
• Senator Milton Young[20]
• Senator Prescott Bush
• Senator Prentiss M. Brown
• David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon Eisenhower, during the summer of 1970
• Former Peruvian Ambassador to the United States Mr. and Mrs. Celso Pastor de la Torre
• President of the British Cartographic Society Dr Alexander Kent, during the summer of 2017

Vice President Thomas R. Marshall lived for a short time in the Wardman Park Hotel that was destroyed in 1980.

As one of the largest event spaces in Washington DC, the Marriott Wardman Park hosts many annual events including:

• Conservative Political Action Conference
• International Telecommunications Week (ITW) trade show and idea summit
• American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) annual meeting
• Anime USA, an anime convention[21]

The hotel is included in the rotation of cities in which the American Contract Bridge League holds North American Bridge Championship tournaments.[22]

The annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board was held at the Marriott Wardman Park for nearly 60 years.[23] It was moved to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in 2015.[24]

In March 2017, Cvent, an event management company, ranked the Marriott Wardman Park at 87th in its annual list of the top U.S. hotels for meetings.[25]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Washington Marriott Wardman Park.

• Washington Marriott Wardman Park official website
• Wardman Tower condominiums official website