By Susan Straight
Special to the Washington Post
Saturday, December 22, 2007

The Newseum is scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2008 at its Pennsylvania Avenue NW location, but its neighbor, the Newseum Residences, got a head start this summer.

The 135 apartments with luxury finishes have views of the Capitol and the Mall. Rents start at $1,720 for a 440-square-foot studio and top out at $6,500 for a two-bedroom, two-bath unit. Like the Newseum, the Residences are owned by the Freedom Forum. The apartments were developed by CarrAmerica Urban Development, which was bought last spring by Tishman Speyer, before the completion of the project.

Residents do not have to go far for food, transportation, arts and entertainment. A new Wolfgang Puck restaurant, the Source, is next door.

The First Amendment theme of the Newseum extends to the selection of daily newspapers available to residents in the common area and the tabloid-size new-resident packet.

"We were looking for something that would be a real adventure near the monuments and where my husband could walk to work," said resident Judith Haughey, a Chicago native. "Our main objective was to enjoy the whole area." With a Metro stop just a block away and the thriving Penn Quarter neighborhood just outside their door, she said, she and her husband, Joe, found what they were looking for.

Proximity to Reagan National Airport was also important to the Haugheys. They, like some other residents, maintain a home in another city and use the apartment as a District address. "It's 15 minutes, tops, to Reagan" Judith Haughey said.

The closest Metro stop, Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter, received the last third of its name just three years ago, as the neighborhood emerged from years of dinginess. The revitalization features such high-end restaurants as Cafe Atlantico, Poste and Bistro d'Oc. The Lansburgh Theatre is a few blocks away, as are numerous galleries and boutiques, a large bookstore, and a farmers market. Numerous clubs and upscale bars are within an easy walk for those craving night life.

Notable neighbors -- also within walking distance -- include Verizon Center, the FBI Building, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, Chinatown and the Navy Memorial.

Erma Striner moved to Penn Quarter in 1991, and her friends called her an urban pioneer. "The neighborhood has changed a lot," she said. "I love the whole culture of the area; the neighborhood has burgeoned. It's a wonderful place to live for a whole lot of reasons."

One of those is the design of the building itself. "Sleek," "modern," "sophisticated" and "friendly" are words residents use to describe it.

The building's horizontal lines, floor-to-ceiling windows and gleaming exterior stand out among the neoclassical styles found up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. The Newseum itself, still under construction, is what most people notice first on Pennsylvania Avenue next door to the modern Canadian Embassy and close to the East Building of the National Gallery of Art. The Newseum Residences sit adjacent to the Newseum, just around the corner on the Sixth Street side, across the street from the Capital Grille.

"I was watching it as it was constructed and was taken with the beauty of the architecture and how it fit next to the Canadian Embassy," Striner said. "This is a jewel on the avenue."

The Haugheys felt the same way. "When we first saw the building, we though it was totally different" from the many other high-rises they'd looked at in Arlington and the District, Judith Haughey said. "It is so ultra-modern and so different from anything we'd ever lived in," she said. "We wanted something sleek and new and exciting. We knew immediately this was the spot for us."

The sleek sophistication continues into the front lobby, whose most striking feature is a large wall of cream-colored onyx running much of the length of the room and shielding the mailboxes from view. Across from the onyx are floor-to-ceiling windows along the street side, with a 24-hour concierge desk at the rear. Circular couches in bright colors accent warm light wood tones. Walls in the common-area corridors are travertine on the lower half and Venetian plaster on the upper.

The resident lounge is similar to the lobby in design finishes, including the white onyx wall. There are a large plasma TV, a full kitchen, several tables with comfortable orange leather chairs, and lime-green circular couches. Hardwood floors stretch throughout.

The fitness center offers weights, cardio machines and a set of medicine balls.

Some units on the east and west sides of the building have balconies, as well as all of the units on the ninth floor. Erica Knievel and Mike Songer live on this floor and can see the Old Post Office from their one-bedroom unit with floor-to-ceiling walls of windows on two sides.

Knievel (yes, she says, Evel was a distant cousin) and Songer had both lived in other neighborhoods in the District but were looking for a new experience. The two lawyers wanted to be able to walk to work.

"We were excited to try something new," Songer said. "It's a building that doesn't look like anywhere else."

"It has the First Amendment on the side; it's a perfect lawyer building," Knievel said.