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;MPPOSQQIR German Ambassador Peter Wittig and Huberta von Voss-Wittig invite Washington in BY VIRGINIA COYNE PHOTOGRAPHS BY TONY POWELL
HOME LIFE | INSIDE HOMES
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hen someone new moves to town, neighbors typically stop by to introduce themselves, bring a gift or host a welcome party; in the case of German Ambassador Peter Wittig, who began his tenure in Washington in April 2014 after serving as his country’s ambassador to the United Nations, it seems the neighborly tables have been turned.The charismatic Wittig and his charming journalist wife Huberta von Voss-Wittig have used their massive, architecturally striking official residence and its sprawling grounds between Foxhall and Reservoir roads to meet and greet residents of the nation’s capital. “It’s extremely important,” the ambassador says about being a part of the community. “Modern diplomacy is not only government to government. It’s people to people. So, we want to reach out to as many people as we can.” In 2015 alone, the Wittigs have hosted the Washington National Opera Ball, the Elle Women in Washington Power List reception, the Washington Ballet’s Swan Ball (which transformed their backyard into a wonderland of pink peonies and lighted trees), and the Europoean Union’s Open House which had been expected to draw 5,000 people but in fact brought close to10,000 to the residence and adjacent embassy gardens. “It was like a big sit-in. People wouldn’t leave. And there were dozens of kids in the reflecting pool,” says his wife, smiling at the thought of the event, which she called “really, really nice.”
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PREVIOUS PAGE (clockwise from top left): Huberta von Voss-Wittig plays near the reflecting pool with the family’s rescue puppy, Mikosch, adopted through K-9 Lifesavers Dog Rescue. A view of the residence, designed by architect O.M. Ungers and completed in 1994, from the gardens below. The reception hall boasts a marble fireplace and cherry wood and leather furniture. Color woodcuts on canvas from the ”Men Without Women - Parsifal” series by Markus Lüpertz encircle the room. The massive table in the formal dining room was designed to seat large groups. Paintings on the wall are by Bernard Schultze (1915-2005). THIS PAGE (clockwise from top left): A small statue of a clown by Hans Scheib graces a table in the Ladies’ Sitting Room, one of the smaller meeting rooms off the Reception Hall. Amb. Wittig says the room is his favorite in the house because he can look out onto the gardens through the windows. Bitburger and Köstritzer beer are on tap in the Berlin Bar. A neon sign welcomes visitors as they head downstairs to the Berlin Bar.
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The Wittigs also hold court over smaller gatherings of intellectuals and authors they’ve dubbed the “Berliner Salon” in the residence’s downstairs Berlin Bar, a thinkingman’s Ratskeller, where Bitburger beer is on tap. They relish hosting luminaries and regular folk alike, and though they admit their more than 19,000-squarefoot monolith of a house, designed by renowned German architect O.M. Ungers (1926-2007) and completed in 1994, is far from the coziest place they’ve ever lived, they say it affords them the opportunity to entertain on a grand scale and to rarely have to trim the guest list. “In this building anything is possible,” Mrs. Wittig says. “I like the transparency of it. I also like the light play and what it symbolizes … that Germany should be represented in America in a modern building because it shows that we are really a modern country.” Embassy literature describes the building as a synthesis of traditional and modern styles, but to the untrained eye the residence is both undeniably modern and a showcase for everything square – entrance doors, windows, the marble fireplace, the paintings by contemporary artist Markus Lüpertz, the Unger-designed furniture, even the pattern on the floors. The square orderliness of it all does not allow for personalization – the most the Wittigs were permitted to do was swap some of the black furniture for “warmer” cherry pieces already in the collection. “[Ungers] designed the furniture, so he conceived this as sort of an integrated whole so to speak,” Amb. Wittig observes, noting that they can’t add new furniture. “What we did, conceptually, is open it up and fill it with new life.” Some of that new life includes their rescue puppy, Mikosch – “the first American born member of the family” – and the Wittig’s four children, the youngest of whom is 7year-old Felice, who likes to walk across the gardens to the ambassador’s office for what he calls “surprise inspections,” and to give her father a kiss on the cheek. Her reward is a handful of gummy bears.
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