The Notorious And Scandalous Watergate Hotel Gets A Fab Facelift


The Watergate Hotel has made its mark on American culture, as we are still naming questionable events after it, like Tom Brady’s ball scandal, Deflate-gate, but now it’s in the news for a serious facelift. And the Watergate Hotel is not trying to hide its scandalous past but have decided instead to embrace it. Fabulous names and faces have graced the Watergate, and this new modernization will guarantee that there will be more to come.

According to the Huffington Post, the Watergate Hotel is now taking reservations for a stay at the hotel that seems to be built for scandal in a town that seems to have invented it. Perched overlooking Georgetown in Washington, DC and Northern Virginia, the rehabbed Watergate Hotel will have a new whiskey bar and a rooftop lounge. The costume designer from Mad Men was tapped to design the outfits for the Watergate staff.

The Watergate is actually a complex that includes two office towers, three co-op apartment buildings, and the hotel. It opened in October of 1965 and was designed by Italian architect Luigi Moretti. A grand opening in 1965 included 1,000 guests, and locals stood in line to get a look at the high-end apartments with elegant marble floors and hand-painted ceilings.

Life Magazine did a who’s who feature, dropping names of those who lived in the Watergate, and this was before the infamous break-in during the Nixon administration. Regulars and residents included Betsy and Alfred Bloomingdale and Leonore and Walter Annenberg. Mrs. Reagan was a regular at the Watergate Hotel’s Restaurant Jean Louis, and the Reagans celebrated Christmas Eve with USIA Director Charlie Wick and his wife Jane in their Watergate apartment.

Vanity Fair reports that though there are some things that the Watergate Hotel and Washington, DC would like to put behind itself, the new Watergate is happy to also give a nod to some of the racier things that happened at the Watergate. Rather than shrink in shame, the Watergate Hotel has decided to own its history. When checking into the 336 room property, your key passes along a cheeky message.

“No need to break in.”

Euro Capital Properties senior vice president Rakel Cohen explains that the Watergate Hotel has a legendary past and hopes to write new chapters in the future.

“It was a playground for powerful people, for artists, for movie stars. It was a glamorous environment.”

And the Watergate Hotel customer service phone number? It will end in the digits 1972. The Watergate Hotel is looking at a time once again when people will come to see and be seen.

“In Washington, the art scene is here. The food scene is here. The fashion scene is getting here, but the hotel scene took a chop. There isn’t a lifestyle hotel here that’s also luxurious.”

Although Cohen says she wants the new Watergate Hotel to feel more Camelot that Nixonian, there will be one exception to that theme. In the powder rooms, tapes of the Nixon era recordings will be played now and then to the amusement of lobby and lounge guests.

Curbed DC says that the Watergate Hotel is bringing back a vibe of “covert retro chic” to the Washington hotel scene. Whether patrons come for a hotel stay at the Watergate Hotel, drop in for a drink or a snack on the rooftop at Top of the Gate, or sample a whiskey at the Next Whisky Bar, they will be greeted with the curved architecture that the Watergate is known for.

The neutral colors, lush leathers, and combined modern and retro feel will greet guests to the 10-acre property that is now open for reservations.

What comes to mind when you think of the Watergate Hotel?

[Photo by Chip Somodevilia/Getty Images]

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