![]() In the lobby is an antique collection of miniature liquor bottles. ![]() A beautiful 5-by-3-foot Tiffany stained glass window of three women has been valued at more than $15,000, and the club has a smaller Tiffany window in the door of the ladies room. Some of the items left behind in the Gaslight are of considerable value. "There are some 20,000 members, and many of them probably want something of the club," he said. Griffin said the new owners probably will hold an auction to sell most of the club artifacts. One foreign gentleman, confusing the dark red damask club interior with that of an institution of lesser repute, shyly asked to see the rooms where the ladies of the house entertained, he said. The attorneys have brought some of their clients through on tours, Griffin said. The only thing the partners had to return were the skimpy costumes worn by the cocktail waitresses, also known as Gaslight Girls, to the little old lady in Chicago who sewed them each by hand. The tables are still set, the wine is still in the cellar and the two bars are fully stocked. When the court ordered it closed, the club managers served a last meal to members and simply locked the door behind them. and into the back door of the now-abandoned club to explore. Since then, the attorneys have been slipping through the alley from the firm's current rented office building at 16th and K Sts. "They were anxious to liquidate the club's assets so some of the creditors could be paid," Griffin said. The two attorneys and Naing met with the trustee in the Washington club in February and made an offer for the property, which was accepted by the club's creditors and the bankruptcy court in March. Griffin said he contacted the court-appointed trustee of the Gaslight Club shortly after he heard that the club had filed for bankruptcy. By 1984, the Washington chapter had 20,000 members, most of them male and many of them lobbyists, Griffin said. Women were not allowed to join the Gaslight Clubs until the early 1970s. All Gaslight Clubs have similar decor because it "represents the last golden age of man, before women got the vote and went into business and politics," according to founder Burton Browne. The Washington Gaslight chapter was started in 1959 and was heavy on the traditional components that were the mainstay of turn-of-the-century men's clubs-liquor was plentiful and women were scarce.īehind the club's somewhat undistinguished 16th Street front lies a dimly lit Victorian interior with red velvet wallpaper, dark wood panels and marble fireplaces. The Gaslight Club chain, which had operations in Chicago, New York and Florida as well as Washington, went bankrupt early this year, and a federal bankruptcy court ordered the Washington club to close its doors on Feb. We've even received calls from Gaslight members asking us to keep it as a club." "But we've been inundated with telephone calls from people wanting to buy or lease. "Our plans are to move the law firm into the building," said Griffin. ![]() ![]() Grant III, and convert it into offices for the six-attorney firm. They hope to renovate the four-story mansion, once the home of Ulysses S. Naing, bought the building together as 1020 16th Street Associates in March for an unrevealed sum. Griffin, along with real estate investor Richard W. "It is like being kids in an attic whenever we go over there," said attorney Michael McGovern. They got it-lock, stock and solid onyx bar of unknown tonnage, Tiffany stained glass windows of considerable value, and assorted nude paintings of questionable taste. Their target: the chain's Washington building at 1020 16th St. When attorneys at the Washington real estate law firm of Lambert, Griffin & McGovern got word that the national chain of Gaslight Clubs was going bankrupt, they grabbed for the phone and started calling.
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