It is located at 1607 23rd Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C. 20008.The Beaux-Arts mansion was built in 1907 by the prominent architecture firm Carrère and Hastings of New York. It was originally the home of Manhattan attorney Frank Ellis. In 1921 it became home of the Embassy of Romania. Carrère and Hastings’s design carefully combines a fine French style inspired by Parisian townhouses of the L
ouis XV and Louis XVI period with English elements of a later era. Among the more important works designed by the firm are the Manhattan Bridge in New York City (1905), the Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C., the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C. the Frick Residence in New York City, the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington Cemetery, and the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C.Crossing the threshold, visitors enter the foyer. The rather restrained architecture of this space – the use of stone and limited decoration – was highly influenced by Eighteenth Century French precedents, with some hints of Seventeenth Century English Palladian work. The straight and simple lines of the stonework are compensated by two flamboyant 18th-century Spanish chairs, and a marble table in the style of Italian palace furnishings.Both reception rooms on the first floor, although very different, are influenced by French tradition. Two Ionic columns frame the door of the small meeting room on the left, which displays a Louis XV influence. White boiserie has Rococo shell-motif decorations, while over door paintings depict rustic scenes in the manner of Fragonard.
