The Cairo
1615 Q Street, NW
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, prompting laws limiting building heights. Local architect Thomas Franklin Schneider packed the Cairo with luxuries and innovations: 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.
Listed in the DC Inventory of Historic Sites, 1990, and the National Register of Historic Places, 1994.
An interesting read on the up and down history of the Cairo: https://www.metroweekly.com/
Guests/tenants have included Queen Liliuokalani, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Thomas Edison.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The interior has been completely gutted since its early days, but there are many interesting exterior architectural details.