Decorating with Compromise

In Washington, D.C., versatile designer Nestor Santa-Cruz helped marry his clients' very different tastes while freshening up their century-old home's traditional architecture

Written by Jorge S. Arango • Photographed by Erik Johnson
Produced By Susan Tyree Victoria and Barbara Bohl

To the annals of famous last words, the wife in the couple who own this 3,600-square-foot home in our nation's capital adds this entry: "We need to buy this house," she recalls telling her husband on their walk-through with a real estate agent three years ago. "We won't have to do a thing to it!" Three months later, it was gutted. "Yes," adds her bemused husband, "we took a house that was in move-in condition and made it completely unlivable." Fortunately, it was unlivable only for a while, a necessary step in the home's evolution.

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