River Park Washington DC

Charles Goodman Townhomes for Sale in River Park

There are currently three Charles Goodman-designed townhomes for sale in River Park. All three units have been listed for more than a month and look like they need work.
History of Goodman Townhomes at River Park
Opened in 1962, River Park is a mid-century modern cooperative housing project of Charles Goodman townhomes and an apartment block built by the Reynolds Aluminum Corporation. It was developed as as a way to showcase aluminum as a building material.
The complex was built as part of Southwest Washington’s urban renewal efforts in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The community was designed by architect Goodman and landscape architect Eric Paepcke, who also did work in Hollin Hills in Virginia with Goodman.
River Park Highlighted
River Park has been highlighted by the likes of The Washington Post, which in addition to calling it “unmistakable,” wrote that “to live under a barrel roof in Southwest is to live in a building of some historical import.”
The New York Times featured the River Park shortly after it was built on the front page of the newspaper, calling the community a “fresh design outlook.”

Charles Wagner-designed mid-century modern in Moyaone Reserve.

Demand for Mid-Century Modern Homes Strong

UrbanTurf writes about the continuing demand for mid-century modern homes in the Washington area despite Mad Men being off the air for the past five years.
“Mad Men concluded its television run in 2015 and it seemed like people’s infatuation with mid-century modern design went with it,” writes Nena Perry-Brown. “However, interest in the DC area’s mid-century housing market remains high.”
Read the full article here and explore some of the mid-century modern neighborhoods in the Washington, D.C. area.

Washingtonian Top Agent

Washingtonian Magazine Top Agent Recognition

I am honored to be recognized once again as a Washingtonian Magazine Top Agent. Thank you to all of my clients, family and friends who have supported Modern Capital for the past 14 years. Please reach out if you are thinking of buying or selling a mid-century modern home. Happy to meet and discuss today’s modern real estate market.

Eames lounge chair

Furnishing a Mid-Century Modern Home: Inspiration & Sourcing

A guest post on sourcing mid-century modern furniture from our partner, ATTIC.
Nothing completes a beautiful mid-century home like furniture and decor drawn from the same aesthetic. The simple, sleek lines of MCM furniture pair up perfectly with the modern, open and airy feel that make mid-century homes the gems that they are. The following post provides some inspiration, whether you’re just starting or continuing to furnish your home. We’ll focus on two spaces: dining rooms and living rooms.

We’re also going to introduce you to ATTIC, a one-of-kind resource that will help you find the best mid-century furniture from stores of the DC and Baltimore regions. After all, who wants to buy a “forever” piece of furniture without ever seeing or touching it? ATTIC makes that process so much easier. ATTIC is now available in cities throughout the country, but is owned and operated by a small team based right here in Washington, D.C. Its mission is simple — to make it easier for consumers to shop from small, local businesses.

Dinner is Served, In Style
Whether it’s with family or friends, the importance of meal time transcends culture. As such, dining rooms and breakfast nooks are often visual focal points in modern homes. And with pieces like those pictured here, it’s no wonder why. Rectangular, round, “boat-shaped”…small, grand, or expandable…mid-century dining tables come in a vast array of options. Likewise, some of the most famous furniture designs in history are those for mid-century dining chairs.

Rosewood Dining Table
Read More >

Charles Goodman-designed apartment in River Park

My New Listing: Unit in River Park by Charles Goodman

Here is my latest listing in the Charles Goodman-designed River Park in Southwest DC. It is a renovated 1 bed/1 bath unit in the mid-century modern enclave’s high-rise building in walking distance to Metro. (Photos by Tod Connell.) You can see a quick walk through video here.

The 6th floor, West-facing apartment with tree-top views has an updated kitchen, reglazed bathroom and custom bedroom closet and electronic shades.

The unit has been freshly painted and features modernist FLOR carpeting. The finished balcony area, marked by the Charles Goodman’s unique aluminum decorative panels, provides extra interior space. The coop fee includes utilities, taxes, maintenance and the underlying mortgage.

Walk to Metro
River Park is located just down the block from Waterfront Metro Station, Safeway and Starbucks and minutes from the redeveloped Wharf, booming Navy Yard area, Nationals Park and Audi Field. River Park is a gated community on 11 park-like acres with swimming pool, tot lot and gym. Parking is available.

As part of Southwest Washington’s urban renewal efforts in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Charles Goodman’s firm designed River Park, a cooperative housing project of townhomes and an apartment-style block built by the Reynolds Aluminum Corporation as a way to showcase aluminum as a building material. River Park has been highlighted by the likes of The Washington Post, which in addition to calling it “unmistakable,” wrote that “to live under a barrel roof in Southwest is to live in a building of some historical import.”
The New Read More >

Renovations at Goodman’s River Park

River Park, opened in 1962, is a mid-century modern cooperative housing project of townhomes and an apartment block built by the Reynolds Aluminum Corporation as a way to showcase aluminum as a building material. The complex was built as part of Southwest Washington’s urban renewal efforts in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The community was designed by architect Charles M. Goodman and landscape architect Eric Paepcke, who also did work in Hollin Hills. Today, River Park it is undergoing a major renovation of its lobby (more on that in another post) and landscape, which has been dominated by concrete.

Landscape architecture firm Lea|Siri, according to this recent article by Shawn Cornelius in the Southwester, says the plan is one that “envisions a landscape at River Park that is more environmentally conscious, improves the quality and aesthetics of the grounds while recognizing and protecting the original design intent, and provides outdoor amenities that support community-wide activities and informal gatherings.”
Once the project is done, the article says “River Park’s landscape will feature an expanded playground and lawn; a larger community picnic area with tables, grills, and shade trees; a renovated courtyard with universal accessibility and enlarged planters; additional seating in key areas of the campus for greater use of the outdoor spaces; new shade and flowering trees in uniform groupings to support the original design intent and to provide more seasonal interest; and a more welcoming and unified feel throughout the community.”
Here is a collection of Read More >

Goodman Barrel-Roof Townhome in River Park

In the 1956 book “Aluminum in Modern Architecture,” published by Reynolds, Charles Goodman discussed how he was working on aluminum, rather than wood, to hold his walls of glass. “With glass, the only thing we’re using the surround for is to hold the glass in place. I don’t see any point in using wood for that surround. Why not use aluminum?” You can view Goodman’s work in the flesh in one of his barrel-roof townhomes in River Park in Southwest DC. It is listed for $499K. You can see images here. Goodman was picked to design River Park by Reynolds Metals Company, which developed the co-op in the 1960s to display its aluminum building products. Goodman also designed the Alcoa Care-free Home to highlight the material. Two dozen were built around the country.

WashPost on 50 Years of Goodman’s River Park

I wanted to make sure everyone saw the Washington Post’s feature on Charles Goodman’s River Park in Southwest, which opened in 1962 and is celebrating its Golden (Aluminum?) Anniversary. Reporter Monica Hesse delves into the architecture along with the social impact of the community, interviewing long-time owners and newer residents attracted to Goodman’s unique designs. As part of Southwest Washington’s urban renewal efforts in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Goodman’s firm designed River Park, a cooperative housing project of townhomes and an apartment block built by the Reynolds Aluminum Corporation as a way to showcase aluminum as a building material.
Here’s how Hesse kicks off her piece:
“The barrel-roof townhouses of River Park are Campbell’s soup cans, halved the long way, balanced on top of metal cubes two blocks from Southwest Washington’s Waterfront Metro station. They are called ‘houses’ — because people live in them, and really, what else could they be called? — but they are architectural punch lines, visual acid trips, the left-behind parts of the secret UFO that docked down by the waterfront half a century ago and then flew away before anyone caught it on camera. The barrel-roof townhouses of River Park were —
“’They were fantastic,’ says Arthuryne Taylor. In the 1960s, she had come to Washington from Tennessee, where the houses had things like shutters and shingles. ‘I had never seen anything like them. They were cosmopolitan. Nashville was country. This was cosmopolitan.’ She and her husband discovered the community through an open house. “’I said, Read More >

Charles Goodman’s River Park Townhomes

Here are a few shots of the townhomes in Charles Goodman’s River Park in Southwest. The black and white shots pay homage to the work of the the late Robert C. Lautman, who was dean of Washington’s architectural photographers and who regularly photographed the work of D.C.’s modern architects, including Goodman. (Lautman died in October at the age of 85. The National Building Museum hosted a memorial service tonight. View a slideshowof some of Lautman’s iconic work.)
If you’re interested in a barrel-roof Goodman townhome in River Park, which was commissioned by Reynolds Aluminum, there are two on the market. This one is listed at $389K and open this Sunday. This one is at $419K.

I still can’t get over these decidedly non-modern storm doors.

A Tour of Southwest

More than 50 years ago, Southwest D.C. underwent a massive transformation, representing the largest urban renewal project in U.S. history. The project covered 113 blocks, more than 450 acres and led to the relocation of more than 20,000 residents. Amid new development in the area, the question is how should the mid-century modern architecture of the original renewal effort be protected and preserved. On Oct. 4, the D.C. Preservation League and DOCOMOMO held “Southwest DC: Renewal at Risk,” a walking tour of the key projects from the 1950s and ’60s. Eric Jenkins, an architect, associate professor at Catholic University’s School of Architecture and Planning and River Park resident, led the two-hour tour of the area, which he described like the “Lower East Side up until the 1950s.” Jenkins said roughly 25 to 30 percent of the mostly working-class people came back to Southwest after the massive renewal effort.
In his AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C., G. Martin Moeller Jr. writes that while many urban renewal projects have “come to symbolize indiscriminate destruction of neighborhoods (squalid though they may have been) in favor of drab, soulless superblocks … much of the redevelopment in the Southwest quadrant was of unusually high quality, avoiding the pitfalls that plagued many such projects elsewhere. Notwithstanding the sensitive social issues surrounding the genesis of such endeavors, several of the housing developments in Southwest are among the best works of large-scale urban architecture of their era.”
These are the very projects the tour focused Read More >

The World of Windows

Alexa Yablonski has an interesting piece in the Post‘s Fall Home & Design Issue about how windows were incorporated into various architectural styles over the years, culminating with the liberal use of glass in modern architecture as the price of the material declined. “[I]t wasn’t until the 20th century that the ribbon window (a series of horizontal windows separated only by mullions) and the glass curtain wall (essentially, one large window that envelopes an entire house or skyscraper) became possible — and went on to become hallmarks of modern architecture,” Yablonski writes.
Yablonski highlights Charles Goodman’s aluminum-and-glass barrel-vault townhomes in River Park as an example of how glass was used in local mid-century architecture. Although she quotes one resident as saying the unique vault design has some drawbacks. “It’s hot as hell. And bright. You have to get up early — there’s no choice,” says Max Robitaille. Although shades fall on the wrong side of the modernist manifesto, how about installing blackout shades to fit the space if you want to sleep in later? What do River Park residents have to say about that?

City Paper Blogs About River Park Status

Following up on an item I did about River Park, the City Paper’s Angela Valdez writes a short update, saying Charles Goodman’s contribution to urban renewal in Southwest during the ’60s is safe for now.

Update: River Park Not Endangered

In response to the anonymous post I received the other day claiming there was a memo circulating detailing an effort to sell River Park to developers to build a parking garage for the new baseball stadium, sources within River Park said that suggestion is erroneous and that there is “no plan or proposal to sell of demolish River Park.” They said the memo, which was “not in any way circulated, endorsed, or drafted by the Board or Management of River Park,” was distributed by one resident who proposed “nothing more than to look into whether River Park should explore development of its ‘excess land’ (referring primarily to our giant parking lot that abuts Delaware Avenue), not whether River Park should sell itself to developers. The member’s idea was to ask whether there was a way to capitalize on this parking lot.”

Southwest: Charles Goodman’s River Park High-Rise

As part of the urban renewal efforts in Southwest in the 1960s, Charles Goodman designed River Park, a mix of 134 townhomes and a 384-unit high-rise complex, which is located on Delaware Avenue. Sponsored by Reynolds Metals, Goodman featured aluminum prominently in his designs. The River Park co-op web site has a listing of all the units for sale. Looks like there are currently 20 high-rise units on the market. I’m highlighting a couple of the apartments for sale whose listings have good images, especially of the unique aluminum decorative panels Goodman used in the exterior design.
1 bedroom/1 bath – 185,500 – Good images of the aluminum screens.
1 bedroom/1 bath – $210K – Capitol view from this one.
Here are images of another major apartment building designed by Goodman. The 35-story Houston House was built in Texas in 1963.

ArchitectureDC on I.M. Pei, Neutra and Goodman Homes in D.C.

When I was looking for information on the D.C. “Case Study House,” I came across this Summer 2003 issue of ArchitectureDC, a publication of the Washington chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
Not only does it have a short item on that house, but an interesting article (beginning on page 7 of the issue) on the 1962 I.M Pei-designed Slayton House located in Cleveland Park. The magazine also has short items (page 14) on the 1968 Brown House by Richard Neutra in the Van Ness area and one on Charles Goodman’s 1960s aluminum-infused River Park townhomes, which are located on 4th St., SW, between N and O streets.