When Chris Boutlier made his first DC real estate purchase, his husband, David Cromer, asked him, “Are you insane?” The condo, occupying the top two floors of a 1910 row house in Columbia Heights, was a dated sea of yellow travertine, orangey terracotta and cherry wood, with a choppy layout that blocked sightlines.

“I told him, ‘I promise, it will be very cool when I’m done!’” the designer recalls with amusement.

He had a distinct vision that sprang from a particular source: a biography of New York art dealer Samuel Wagstaff, an intimate of Robert Mapplethorpe and one of the first collectors of fine art photography in the U.S. (Upon Wagstaff’s death in 1987, his collection went to the Getty Museum.) “I became interested in that 1980s period when Wagstaff lived in New York City,” Boutlier recounts. “Spaces were being redone to double as homes and art galleries. The gallery world was open, white-box spaces with black leather and chrome.”

Boutlier was excited to embrace that sleek, graphic aesthetic—but the 1,500-square-foot unit had been renovated badly in the 1990s and an intervention was in order first. He and Cromer “spent a lot of money redoing the internal components,” Boutlier says. “We installed new HVAC, water heaters and plumbing.” Trim, baseboards, doors and casings were all updated, and odd ceiling heights corrected. Switches, outlets and recessed lights were replaced.

Structural changes also took place. The entrance to the abode is accessed from street level via a staircase. To create a foyer and a sense of openness, Boutlier reorganized spaces: The powder room shifted locations to allow for a short hallway; it runs past a newly added laundry room and closets to a spare bath and a bedroom used by the couple as a home office. The hall provides a sightline to a back balcony, visible from the stair.

The once-outmoded kitchen, which anchors one end of the living/dining area, got an overhaul that retained its footprint while transforming it with fresh, contemporary custom finishes. Black-stained oak cabinets are paired with Statuario marble countertops and backsplash showcasing dramatic swirls of gray and taupe.

The upper floor is now a dedicated primary suite. On the street-facing end, Boutlier switched out a problematic beam for one of steel, bringing functionality to a disused room tucked into the eaves; it became a home gym accessed from the bedroom via French doors.

The primary bath was reimagined in hotel-spa style, with a marble-clad shower replacing the tub and an oddly angled toilet relocated inside a WC. Nero Marquina marble tops the black-stained vanity and clads the floor in hexagonal mosaic tiles. The closet, which connects the bedroom and bath, is lined with sleek, custom cabinetry made of dark oak.

According to the designer, the existing stair adjoining the main and second levels “was the one nice treat in the house.” He kept its basic steel structure and replaced the treads with white oak. Corehaus DC fabricated a black-steel louvered screen to replace a wall of glass that doubled as the stair railing. A half railing of the same material was installed on the upper level.

A graphic, black-and-white palette prevails throughout, warmed by white oak floors that replaced orange-hued planks. Boutlier applied a white limewash to exposed, red-brick walls. “I wanted the texture of the brick, but for it to feel light and airy,” he explains.

Against the backdrop of expansive, white walls, mid-century and contemporary furnishings in glass, chrome and shades of black were purchased to reflect the gallery-esque aesthetic Boutlier had envisioned. A Mies van der Rohe coffee table was placed before a DWR sofa in the living area, while vintage Italian leather chairs surrounded a glass-and-steel dining table. Upstairs, the primary bedroom featured a vintage Dunbar lounge chair, ottoman and nightstands and a Brutalist dresser. Throughout the dwelling, pieces were positioned to enhance bold, modern art and photography hung or leaning, gallery-style, along the walls.

While Boutlier and Cromer have since moved on to an abode in Georgetown, the designer remembers this first home with great fondness. “I never really thought my skills as a designer would afford me the opportunity financially to do the things in my own home that I was doing for clients,” he reflects. “While we lived there, I felt so lucky. This house was especially meaningful to me.”