The Marriott Wardman Hotel

2660 Woodley Rd. NW Washington, D.C. 20008 202-328-2000

Marriott Wardman Park - Historical Facts

• Built between 1917 and 1918 by local developer Harry Wardman, the Wardman Park Hotel was an eight-story, red brick structure modeled off The Homestead resort in Virginia. The hotel was the largest in the city, with 1200 rooms and 625 baths.

• In 1928, the hotel was expanded with an eight-story, 350-room residential-hotel annex, designed by architect Mihran Mesrobian. That building is today the only surviving portion of the original Wardman Park, known as the Wardman Tower and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Wardman was forced to sell the hotel in 1931, due to the Great Depression, to Washington Properties. The first televised broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press took place in 1947 in the Wardman Tower, where host Lawrence Spivak was a resident. Other shows broadcast from the hotel include The Camel News Caravan, The Today Show (Frank Blair segments), and The Arthur Murray Dance Program.

• The Wardman tower building has been home to a number of politicians and other public figures including two U.S. Presidents:

• President Lyndon B. Johnson for about 45 days as Vice-Presiden
• President Dwight D. Eisenhower

• The annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board was held at the Marriott Wardman Park for nearly 60 years.