The
20th annual Kalorama House and Embassy Tour on Sunday featured, among others, the Residence of the Ambassador of
Hungary, His Excellency András Simonyi.
The
house at 2215 30th Street, NW was built in 1948 as the northwestern
neighborhoods of Washington continued their post-war expansion.
There is no architect of record for this residence and the little we
know from title records is that the lot was one of several in the
area owned by Andrew Wylie. He built the brick house with
garage and then sold it to George W. Offutt, III, on December 7,
1948.
Offutt
was a member of a prominent Washington family.
His grandfather was a local banker and his father, George W.
Offutt, Jr., was the chair of the Washington ABC Board and wrote the
city’s traffic safety laws. George Offutt Jr. was also a
graduate of Princeton University while Woodrow Wilson was President
of that institution. George
Offutt III lived in the house for the next several decades.
The
Hungarian Government recently purchased the house from Senator John
Edwards, (D-NC).
Senator and Mrs. Edwards completely remodeled and modernized the
house. Ambassador Simonyi and
his wife, Mrs. Náda Peják Simonyi, have made the house a showplace
for contemporary Hungarian artists.
The many large canvases, mostly abstract and vividly
colorful, appear in each of the public spaces from the large family
room to a wonderful study which overlooks the pool in the rear
garden.
Ambassador
Simonyi greeting visitors at the Residence
