At Home on the Southwest Waterfront
A midcentury sensibility and glistening coastal views lured this couple to their sleek condo in DC’s quietest enclave.
Words: Shaun Conway Courtney
Images: Emma McAlary
After living five years in DC’s lively Adams Morgan neighborhood, Compass clients Al Salas and Carlos Torres decided to buy a midcentury gem on the serene Southwest Waterfront. The hitch? Enduring nine months of renovations before they were able to enjoy the finished product: an open, light-filled space lined with balconies, leafy views, and the lapping waves of the Washington Channel.
Carlos is an economist, and Al is a landscape architect by training. Though Al’s family lived in New Mexico for four generations, his parents moved to the DC area, raising Al in nearby Howard County, Maryland. Carlos, born in Cuba and raised in Miami, moved to DC from New York in 2001, and met Al just a year later. Since then, the two have lived together in six different homes, most recently this airy unit within DC’s landmarked Harbour Square high-rise.
Preparing to semi-retire to a custom, porch-lined home in historic Lewes, Delaware, they’ve partnered once again with Compass agent Trent Heminger and his team member Kevin Gray of Trent & Co. to put 550 N St. SW on the market. Al has known Trent for nearly two decades and has been through four real estate transactions with him, buying and selling homes in neighborhoods both buzzy and serene.
You used to live near Adams Morgan, which is known as one of the more bustling parts of the city. How did you come to move to the comparatively sleepier Southwest?
Al: It’s true that we went from the most lively to probably the quietest part of the city. We used to live just off of 18th Street, but I don’t think we have missed it one bit.
Carlos: I was ready to have a quieter existence. This is like living in a small town.
Al: Strangers say “good morning” when they see you on the street. Even though the buildings are big, people say hello. You don’t get that in most of the city.
And what was it like living here during construction?
Al: When the home was first on the market, there were vertical blinds everywhere, and for whatever reason the realtor showed the space with them closed — missing out on all the beautiful views and light. The original parquet floors were stained and rotted, and that was only the beginning. It was on the market for a year when we bought it. People didn’t see the potential—it even took us coming back three times before I thought I could actually do this.
Carlos: Usually Al is up for anything, and I couldn’t understand how he wasn’t seeing this. I’m usually the guy who has no vision. I thought it was fantastic.
Al: I knew we’d have to live through it. We’d renovated a kitchen, and we’d had a house built, but this was the first time we’d be living it. Living through construction was really hard because everything is dirty and dusty. But it was the way to get what we wanted.
What changes did you make to the space?
Al: Everything was outdated—everything. And not cool-midcentury outdated — just awful-outdated. The kitchen was a small, closed-off room with a door, so we blew out the wall and added the peninsula. We put in an induction stove, a double oven, new cabinetry. It’s a totally different room.
We opened up the space and ditched those Venetian blinds to let all that natural light in.
I understand this building has a strong mid-century modern architecture connection.
Al: Harbour Square (the co-op complex) dates from 1966 and is registered on the National Trust because it was designed by modernist architect Chloethiel Woodard Smith. At the time she worked on this building, she helmed the largest female-run architectural firm in the country.
I was fortunate enough to have had a short design studio with the complex’s landscape architect, Dan Kiley, while in grad school. He did the whole exterior — the landscaped gardens with perfect lines of maple trees, the beautiful reflecting pools that are home to a new family of ducklings each year — working really closely with Chloethiel. He was known for straight lines. We’re used to this now, but when he did it, it was unusual. When he died, he was perhaps the most well-known modernist landscape architect of all time.
Tell me about your art collection: What inspires you, and how have you acquired the pieces in your home?
Carlos: My contributions are mostly from DC-based Latino artists. When I first moved to DC from New York, I found myself at an auction of Latin American art to benefit the Whitman-Walker Clinic. Having been born in Cuba and raised mostly in Miami, I’d always wanted a piece of art from a Latin American artist. I bought two that night and have invested in several more since.
Two of my favorites are these huge acrylics by DC-based Mexican artist David Amoroso. We saw the “Toro” piece at El Tamarindo, a Salvadoran restaurant in Adams Morgan near our previous home. We asked the owner about how we could purchase it, and he arranged for us to meet the artist. We came back one day, met David, and took the painting right off the wall!
Are there any family heirlooms or sentimental items you incorporated into your decor?
Al: I grew up with this coffee table in my basement, so it was really abused from us playing board games on it. When my family was selling my parents’ home, the coffee table was the one thing I wanted. It wasn’t until the person delivering our reproduction Knowland couch—the original was designed by Edward Wormley for Dunbar—remarked that it’s a Paul Frankl classic from the 1940s that we realized it had more than just sentimental value. The bottom section is cork, and it had been painted over so much of it couldn’t really be restored, so we ended up leaving the wear-and-tear in place and having a new custom quartz top made for it.
What about this particular unit set it apart from others you’d looked at?
Carlos: I was born on an island; water for me is key. When I found this unit, I thought it was fantastic. We’re a lower-level unit, but that actually works to our advantage. There are huge oak trees all over Southwest DC, and they block the water view from many of the upper units here during the summer. We’re just low enough so that we see under the trees to the water year-round.
Al: In addition to having windows on three sides, there are three balconies. The one off of the dining room gets the morning sun and then once the afternoon comes, the other balconies get the sun. And if you’re lying in bed, you look out onto the water.
There are also the sounds that come with living here. The water, the breeze in the trees. We even get the “toots” of the boats every time they leave — three short and one long. It’s just a great sound; you always know you’re living on the river.
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