For close to three decades, Washington, D.C.’s Tabard Inn has been a legendary gathering place for reporters, politicos out for a power brunch, and locals who are in the know about great places to eat. Hotel guests, many from other countries, often are there because of recommendations from friends or colleagues with great inside information on places to stay.

This sought-after destination is not a major twentieth-century luxury hotel with Jacuzzi suites, designer boutiques, and fitness spas. The hotel and its forty guest rooms date from the World War I era, when three adjacent Victorian row houses were combined to form one hotel. Each room is decorated with its own unique color, style, and antique furniture. Getting to your room requires navigating hall and stairway twists and turns. There is no elevator, and rooms do not have televisions, although the hotel does have Wi-Fi DSL Internet access.

Although the hotel is more than ninety years old, today’s Tabard Inn would not exist without a bit of serendipity involving Racine native Felice “Fritzi” Davis Cohen (BS ’60, comparative literature, LLB ’62) and her late husband, Edward (BS ’59, political science). Certainly the idea of running a hotel was not what Fritzi or Edward anticipated when Fritzi’s high school friend, Gar Alperovitz (BS ’58, history) introduced the two public interest lawyers in Washington, D.C. As much as anything, the path to the Tabard was about being in the right place at the right
time when the DuPont Circle neighborhood...