The Cairo

The Cairo apartment house, built in 1894, was and remains the tallest privately owned building in Washington. At 156 feet, it towered over its neighbors and prompted laws limiting building heights. Local architect Thomas Franklin Schneider filled the Cairo with luxuries and innovations including an elaborate lobby, rooftop garden, top-floor dining room, bowling alley, shops, and electric lighting. He modeled the Moorish Revival entrance after Louis Sullivan's Transportation Building at the 1893 Columbian Exposition. In 1904, Schneider converted the Cairo to an apartment hotel for permanent and transient guests. As the city declined in the 1950s, Schneider's heirs sold the Cairo. Inland Steel Corporation renovated it in 1972 to Arthur Cotton Moore's design. Today, it is condominium residences. It was listed in the DC Inventory of Historic Sites in 1990 and in the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

Washington, District of Columbia · United States