The nine-story Hotel Washington, modified from an Italian Renaissance model, is one of a number of buildings by Carrère and Hastings in the capital city, including the Russell Senate Office Building and the Cannon House Office Building (see CH02, CH03, p. 135). The Hotel Washington acquires a certain dignity through such decorative elements as a smooth rusticated stone veneer that covers the steel frame below the third story. In the upper stories, Italian artists enlivened the dark brown brick with fine sgraffito decoration in the spandrels and around the windows. The rooftop garden overlooks the White House and the Executive Group.