Some Say It Was a Bakery. Now It’s a Family’s Loftlike Home Brimming With Vintage Decor

Eric Rosenthal and Jeffrey Menzer found each other after moving to D.C. in the mid-eighties. It was the early years of the AIDS crisis, and the two bonded over a shared zeal for political advocacy and health initiatives. In the decades after, Eric became a pediatrician and Jeffrey a nurse (he now runs his own public health consulting practice), and they lived in a small, crowded row house with their son in Capitol Hill.

For years, the couple searched for a bigger home in the area but struggled to find any large, modern buildings—the neighborhood is more known for its historic structures. Then, in 2017, Jeffrey and he and Eric’s son attended an open house for a three-story building thought to have once been a bakery.

It was constructed in 1900, was later split into six apartments, and hadn’t been renovated since the ’70s, when most of the original features were stripped. It seemed to have just the right layout, says Jeffrey, to achieve the open, industrial, and loftlike feel that the he and Eric envisioned.