Funkstown – The Inn that (maybe) Gave its Name to the Watergate

By Frank Leone

How did Watergate get its name? “Watergate” could have referred to the nearby C&O Canal lock #1 and certainly related to the floating bandstand at the Lincoln Memorial steps (the water gate to the town). See Funkstown – Watergate. But Joe Rodota’s book indicates that the immediate source was the once-notable Pennsylvania Dutch style restaurant known as the Watergate Inn (1942-1966). The Inn was located at 2700 F Street, by the Rock Creek Parkway, now the site of the northwest corner of the Kennedy Center (parking entrance). The Inn succeeded the Riverside Riding Academy, one of several horse stables along the Potomac riverfront offering easy access to Rock Creek Park trails.

The interior of the Inn, designed by Marjory Henricks’ sister Genevieve, a well-known interior designer, offered a rustic, cozy atmosphere, featuring antiques, pots and pans, and hobbyhorses recalling the building’s origin as a stable. (postcard, Leone/Vogt collection)

Marjory Hendricks (1896-1978) owned and operated the Inn. She was described in 1966 as: “A grandmother with cool, blue eyes, an obvious veteran of many a crisis in the restaurant business.”  Originally from Seattle, Washington, she opened a tea house in Reno, Nevada, then went to France to learn French cooking. In 1930, she opened the Normandy Farm restaurant in Potomac, where first lady Eleonor Roosevelt was a frequent diner. She operated Normandy Farm from 1930-1942, closed it during WW2 (while she served with the Red Cross overseas), and then from 1946-1958. (The slightly renamed Normandie Farms continued under other ownership but closed in 2022.)

In 1942, Hendricks opened the Water Gate Inn and expanded it after the war, serving its renown hot popovers with butter and Pennsylvania Dutch inspired dishes like pork tenderloin and red cabbage, Dutch noodle soup, Mennonite chicken baked in sour cream, oven-baked loin of veal with Pennsylvania egg noodles, fresh yellow squash, bread-and-butter pickles, and Dutch apple cheese pie. You can read about Hendrick’s 1953 cookbook and find recipes here. The restaurant featured log fires in the winter and cool terraces with river views in the summer. The Foggy Bottom area was changing from industrial facilities to government offices, providing customers for the Inn and it became a popular meeting place in D.C.

The ivy-covered Water Gate Inn’s origin as a stable is evident from this postcard. (Leone/Vogt collection)

When plans for the National Cultural Center (Kennedy Center) were floated, Henricks hoped that it would attract visitors to her restaurant. In 1959-1960, she planned to replace her existing restaurant with a seven story “apartment hotel” to be called “Watergate,” featuring a cocktail lounge, restaurant, and gift shop on the ground floor. In 1962 she took out an advertisement in the FBA’s Foggy Bottom News in which she stated that she “heartily welcomes Water Gate Town as a good neighbor.”

Watergate developer Nicholas Salgo persuaded Hendricks to bring her restaurant and the name Watergate into the new hotel to be located in the complex. She changed her mind, however, believing that if the Federal government took her land for the Cultural Center, she would get millions more if she closed rather than moved to a new location. Salgo let her out of her contract, if he could keep the Watergate name. In the end, the Federal Government condemned her property, and she was offered $450k and settled for $650K.

This postcard pinpoints the Water Gate Inn location off of the Rock Creek (and Potomac) Parkway. (Leone/Vogt Collection)

Other riding schools were located near the Water Gate Inn including the Stables (2626 E St.), which had been converted to a country inn in the 1940s. Its success was limited by WW2 rationing restrictions and it was seized by the government and closed for failure to pay back taxes in 1949.  Another stable, Edgewater Riding Academy (26^th and D Streets) kept a goat to calm the horses. Pete the goat would walk himself over to the Pete’s Restaurant (2500 G Street NW, now the site of the Saudi Arabian Embassy) to snack on crackers and cigarette butts. The restaurant/bar, owned by George “Pete” Dailey, the unofficial mayor of Foggy Bottom, closed in September 1957. See Funkstown: Pete the Goat and Irish Foggy Bottom.

Sources:  Joe Rodota, The Watergate: Inside America’s Most Infamous Address, William Morrow (2018); John DeFerrari, “Popovers and Hobbyhorses and the Water Gate Inn,” Streets of Washington (Jan. 14, 2013); John DeFerrari, Historic Restaurants of Washington, D.C.: Capital Eats, History Press, Inc., 2013; William Woys Weaver, “The Water Gate Inn: Pennsylvania Dutch Cuisine Goes Mainstream,” Gastronomica , Vol. 9, No. 3 (Summer 2009), pp. 25-31; John McKelway, “The Rambler … Has a Popover,” Evening Star, Feb. 22, 1966, p. 17; “Marjorie Hendricks, Owner of Restaurants in Md., DC,” Evening Star, Jan. 10, 1978, p. 36.