Soon after I got my real estate license, I became fascinated with a monolithic brick building on the corner of Connecticut Avenue and Porter Street NW.   It was the Broadmoor Cooperative, one of the largest buildings in Cleveland Park.   Back then, 1983, there was one old guy who was sort of the real estate king of this lovely old building.

His name was Nelson, and he must have been 200 years old.  He got all of the listings, and he put nothing into the multiple listing service, which was a fairly new thing back then.  If Nelson liked you, he'd call you and let you know when something came on the market.  I loved the building and I made it a point to schmooze this particular colleague.  Call it primitive social media.

We got along really well until one day the old guy goosed one of my clients as we were going up to the sixth floor to see one of his listings.  She bought the unit anyway.

I remember when he gave me my first tour of the building, including a history lesson.  The Broadmoor opened its doors in 1929, right around the time of the stock market crash.  It was luxury living.

Many of the early tenants were members of the old Washington Senators baseball team.  There were a few other Senators, including Huey Long, who is said to have moved in with a gang of pretty scary looking “body guards” (AKA, thugs) who hung out in the lobby.

The apartments have outer slatted doors, which helped with cross ventilation before the advent of air conditioning.  Some of them still have decals dating to World War II reminding owners:  “Please turn out your lights when leaving rooms.  Blackout alarms may occur when you are out.”

And there are little enclaves on the second floor that Nelson described as “courting areas”, used by young women who were much too respectable to invite a gentleman caller up to their apartments.

The building converted to cooperative ownership in 1948.  A 1-bedroom with a solarium cost about $11,500 back then, and recently one sold for $427,000.  It's a favorite building of mine, but alas, not pet friendly.  And I can't live anyplace that would not welcome Willie the Labradoodle!