777 Washington Street

 townhouse  Add category

4-story residential building completed in 2011. The current building is a rebuilt of the previous structure, erected in 1948. Designed by Joshua Tabatchnik as a factory and refrigeration plant, it was later used as an office building, and then as a huge townhouse and studio by photographer Albert Watson. He sold the 20,000-square foot building in 2009 for $34 million - Watson bought the building for $850,000 in 1985.

The new owner, an English financier, encountered structural problems while doing routine renovations. He ended up tearing the entire building down once the Landmarks Commission had extracted a promise to rebuild the house exactly as it was (not counting the changes — enlarging the fourth floor and adding new windows — that the LPC had already approved.)

The new building faithfully follows the basic appearance of the original, with red brick walls and large factory windows of varying sizes. At the upper right hand side is a horizontal opening filled with plantings. On the interior, there is a large central court with a series of suspended platforms wrapping around the perimeter of the court and serving as both galleries and building circulation space. This court acts together with multi-level garden roof decks to bring natural light into all of the rooms in the house.