By the mid-1990s, however, the Watergate’s Reagan-era luster was fading. Gucci left. Jean-Louis closed in 1996. Empty storefronts soon became a common sight. Then came the complex’s cameo in the Lewinsky scandal, when the former White House intern retreated to her mother’s Watergate apartment to avoid the news media. When Lewinsky moved out in 1998, she left notes for her neighbors apologizing for all the fuss.
The Saks Jandel boutique left four years ago, when the hotel closed. Until then, it had been hard to get an appointment at the Watergate Salon, second-generation owner Claudia Buttaro Pfeffer said on a recent afternoon at the salon. As business slowed, some of her staff left.
“The hairdressers wanted to go where it’s a hip and happening place,” she said as a caregiver nearby instructed a stylist on how much to trim her elderly client’s hair.
The recent departure of the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission from 2600 Virginia Ave. has been hard for Phil Rascona, owner of the Watergate Barber Shop, which his father opened in 1966. The Saudi ambassador made a point of sending long-haired students down for grooming, he said. Former senator Robert J. Dole, 88, a longtime Watergate resident and onetime barbershop regular, stopped coming about two years ago, but for a different reason, Rascona said.
“He colors his hair and goes to a salon now,” Rascona said with a shrug. “He wants to look 70.”
For Davis, who owns two adjoining units in Watergate East, the bottom may have come this past summer, when the carpet and wallpaper in the hallway were removed after a kitchen fire in another apartment. The wallpaper has been replaced, but the carpet has not. The bare floor is an expanse of tar-pocked concrete. A committee of residents is working on choosing new carpet. In the meantime, Davis said, “the place looks like ground zero.”
Some residents and shopkeepers see the seeds of a revival in the new high-rise commercial and residential building developed by Boston Properties next to the Foggy Bottom-GWU Metro station. The ground floor has a Whole Foods and outposts of Sweetgreen, Roti and Circa — all restaurants that have more cachet among sustainability-conscious, iPad surfing, Twittering 20- and 30-somethings.
The Whole Foods helped persuade Tom Martin, 30, and his wife, Margaret Peloso, 28, to move into Watergate South a year ago. He said he generally avoids the shops inside the complex, which “are not geared toward a younger generation.”
Martin and his wife are part of a small but growing contingent of younger newcomers — defined as under 50 — including a few with preschoolers. They have come not for prestige but for convenience and the colorful history.
A drop in the average age would mark a major shift in the demographics of the Watergate, which haven’t changed much since Life magazine noted in 1969 that the typical tenant was about 50 and had “more dogs than children.”
The influx of younger tenants, combined with the possible reopening of the hotel in 2013, could spark another Watergate revival, said Peter Willson, 73, who lives in Watergate South. “I view it as potentially part of the resurgence of the Foggy Bottom,” he said.
For Willson and like-minded residents, the closure of the small, worn-looking Safeway comes as a relief. They are hopeful that Penzance — the District-based firm that recently agreed to buy 2600 Virginia Ave. and take over management of the retail spaces — will replace it with a more upscale grocery. A Penzance spokeswoman declined to comment on any plans.
For now, Watergate denizens are paying their last respects to the Safeway by ransacking it. Two days before Thanksgiving, many shelves were bare.
Hortense Fiekowsky, 91, made her way down a half-depleted aisle of organic food. Safeway’s closure will inconvenience her, she said, because she doesn’t own a car. But having moved to the Watergate two years ago from a retirement community she likened to “a cruise to nowhere,” the retired federal government worker said she is happy to stay.
When her husband is out, she said, she enjoys riding the elevator to check out other men.
“I look at the guy and think, ‘They’re too old for me.’ But they’re probably saying that about me,” she said, smiling. “We call that ‘love among the ruins.’ ”
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