Giuseppe Cecchi – Visionary Real Estate Developer

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Giuseppe Cecchi on Italian architect Luigi Moretti and Moretti’s work on Watergate ~

“. . .we had to convert it from strokes of pens in meters into design, working drawings, in inches. . .He was a genius. I think the Watergate is a really a fantastic architectural project. . .he was that kind of prima donna genius. . . you couldn’t change . . . a comma of what he did. . .we hired a local architect here, and I was sort of the marriage counselor between these two . . .”

A Ockershausen: This is Our Town, this is Andy Ockershausen and I have just a delightful guest here, who has been a very dear friend for many years. He’s a visionary in a Real Estate development. He’s built close to three million square feet of office space and three hotels. He was building mix-use office space before it was the rage. He saw the importance of technology even before Silicon Valley when he built Techworld. He saw the trends for senior living with Leisure World. His name is synonymous with Watergate. He came to America from Italy over 50 years ago, probably now over 60, to start a company and build a great future for our town, for our community. And I’ve seen him play tennis for many years and I’ve played tennis with him. He’s a very dear friend who’s had discussions with his wife in three languages, I always got a big kick out of that. Welcome Giuseppe Cecchi to Our Town.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Thank you, Thank you.
A Ockershausen: Which is really almost your town, now.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Well I’ve been here 57 years.
A Ockershausen: And you came . . .
Giuseppe Cecchi: And I came for a three year assignment . . .
A Ockershausen: And stayed!
Giuseppe Cecchi: And I’m here after 57.

From Milano to Washington DC

A Ockershausen: What was your first build, was your first build in Watergate?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Well there was a building before Watergate, it was called Potomac Plaza Terraces, which was a little piece that came in the deal when we bought the Watergate side. It came with another piece about a block away.
A Ockershausen: I got it.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And it had already drawings ready to go and just to pick up a permit at that time it was easy to pick up a permit. Doesn’t take two years like now. And so we decided to build that as an experiment as a pilot project.
A Ockershausen: Right, before the big one.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And we did 190, at that time condominiums did not exist in Washington, so it was called cooperative. We built a cooperative building, with 190 units, it was successful. We made a million dollars, I think of profit. So then . . .
A Ockershausen: Then they go for the big one.
Giuseppe Cecchi: The top of the company decided, let’s go and develop the Watergate.
A Ockershausen: And you were born in Milan, Milano.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes.
A Ockershausen: And that’s where you got into the learning how to be a builder? I mean, you went to college there and
Giuseppe Cecchi: I went to college there. I graduated as a civil engineer, as a structural and mechanical engineer. And then I went to work for this company, the Societa Generale Immobiliare, in Rome. And I worked for them for several years, and then when the opportunity come to go to America. Very gloomy because I had a little English background. You know, I had spent a couple of vacations in Ireland, in the Channel, Jersey near England, and so I had enough to qualify. I was a bachelor so it was easy to move and less expensive to move. So they put me in the teams that they sent to … they opened three location in this continent. One in New York, one in Mexico City, and one in Montreal. And I was a part of the New York office. And the task was to scout for business opportunities. And the business opportunity we found in New York was a piece of land in Washington that was a company in New York that had an option on the gas company …
A Ockershausen: Where the big tanks were. I remember those big gas.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And that they had the option, and at the time the option came to fruition, they didn’t have the money to do it, so they were marketing it in New York.
A Ockershausen: Oh, I see.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And so that’s where we captured it through a intermediary we had looking for opportunities. We found that.
A Ockershausen: Who owned the tanks? Did Pepco or a gas company own the tanks?
Giuseppe Cecchi: The gas company. Washington Gas.
A Ockershausen: Washington Gas.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Washington Gas and then they moved down further …
A Ockershausen: They had to get away from the city, correct?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Right. And they had this piece of land that was option and this company that bought the option was not able to exercise the option so they sold it to us. And then we came and of course –
A Ockershausen: You moved down here then.
Giuseppe Cecchi: I moved down here in July of 1960.
A Ockershausen: Did you cross the river then or did you live in the city? I mean you personally.
Giuseppe Cecchi: No, I personally I lived just across where Watergate is now in a building called Potomac Plaza.
A Ockershausen: That is still there! I know Potomac Plaza very well. It’s under rent control.

Watergate – First Mixed Use Project in Washington, DC

Giuseppe Cecchi: So I rented a one bedroom apartment. I made my office in the living room and my bedroom in the back and I started like that. In the beginning very small and then we started … because at the time we hadn’t decided really if to develop or what to do. And then we decided to develop and it was a first mixed use project in Washington, D.C. Before that time they had to be only residential or commercial or …
A Ockershausen: I recall that lower levels were stores and shops and restaurants and bars and everything.

Watergate Just Qualifies Under New Ordinance by a Few Feet

Giuseppe Cecchi: And, right. They passed the news of the ordinance that allowed that if you had ten acres or more to do a mixed use project at that time.
A Ockershausen: How many acres did you have?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Ten acres and a few feet.
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Just qualified, yes.
A Ockershausen: But that qualified ya.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And so –
A Ockershausen: That was a revolution in the building business though, wasn’t it?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yeah, the mixed use project at that time, now everybody does mixed use projects …
A Ockershausen: Yeah, that’s right. You started it.
Giuseppe Cecchi: But at that time we started it because my company, the Societa Generale Immobiliare in Italy was doing 80% of their business in mixed use projects. We were . . . there were buildings where you had shops in the buildings and you had offices on top. You had condominiums that, that was the norm in Italy.
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Here, it was something new. And we felt very comfortable and to do it. So we pioneered these things, and it was a hell of a pioneering job, believe me, because it was the first time that they –
A Ockershausen: Absolutely!
Janice Ockershausen: It’s interesting.

Watergate Project Approval

Giuseppe Cecchi: Staff chosen something like that, and in Washington, you know, you get caught in-between in different jurisdiction because at that time there was no mayor, there was the three commissioners, federally elected commissioners. Not elected, appointed. And so that was also the zoning commission, the three commissioners were also the zoning commission. And then there is the National Capital Planning Commission, which has its own agenda, is a federal entity completely independent. And we fell under their jurisdiction because of the proximity to the river and whatever.
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And then we had the Fine Arts Commission, which is another very independent entity, and they had their own agenda, and we fell under their jurisdiction, too. And those are advisory to the Zoning Commission, but basically, you know that you have to please them all. And so if you please the Fine Arts Commission, you may not please the Zoning Commission, you may not please the Planning Commission. And so it was a very long, it took us about two years to get the project approved.
A Ockershausen: Approved. Does that process still take that long in the city? Or are they streamlined it?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Uhhhhh, well, I think it takes that long because now everything takes longer. So you know. And when you have different jurisdictions with different agendas, you know, that you have to –
A Ockershausen: Please a lot of people.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Please, uh, it takes a long time.
A Ockershausen: Well, Giuseppe, the things that you’ve done in the city and made our town so spectacular, but you also spread your wings into northern Virginia.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Oh, yes, yes.
A Ockershausen: Was that all happening at the same time? Or did you wait to –
Giuseppe Cecchi: That’s after Watergate, after Watergate, because at Watergate I was still working for the –
A Ockershausen: The company in Rome, right?
Giuseppe Cecchi: And I directed, I was in charge of the construction.
A Ockershausen: Right.

Watergate Architect – Luigi Moretti

Giuseppe Cecchi: Of the Watergate. And I was just the technical aspect of the project. I was the coordinating design and construction. And that was a big task, too, because we had an Italian architect, was a genius, Luigi Moretti was one of the prominent architects in Italy at that time. And he designs this building with the stroke of his pen, you know. And then we had to build it, you know. And we had to convert it from strokes pens in meters into design, working drawings, in inches.
A Ockershausen: Impossible, but he was a genius, correct?
Giuseppe Cecchi: He was a genius. I think the Watergate is a really a fantastic architectural project.
A Ockershausen: Sit down with a pencil and piece of paper –
Giuseppe Cecchi: But he was that kind of prima donna genius that his design, you couldn’t change it, a comma of what he did, you know, and it was, we hired a local architect here, and I was sort of the marriage counselor between these two architects, you know, to try to . . .
A Ockershausen: You’re trying to build a building.

On Building Watergate

Giuseppe Cecchi: Try to produce some drawings that was buildable, and were Moretti’s strokes of pen. And it took awhile to get it going. So the first building we had a lot of difficulties and I think we had to use computer to design all these little pieces of curve for the façade, you know, that was not a geometrical curve. It was something freehand. So you had to –
A Ockershausen: Very ornate building when it was first built, I do recall.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yeah, yeah. The first building was very successful marketing-wise, but it cost us much more than we were expecting because –
A Ockershausen: And then you built the hotel also, correct, at the same time?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yeah, after that, we learned our experience and what we did, we created our own general contracting company, called Watergate Construction Corporation, and that I was leading, and with that we made it easier to combine, you know, the Italians, the Americans, and everybody.
A Ockershausen: Right, to get the results.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And the other buildings were very, very easy to build basically because we learned everything from the first building, so the second building was a combination office/hotel. The third building was another cooperative, Watergate West, and then the last building was a half office and half condominiums, which was Watergate South.
A Ockershausen: Now how long was the whole project? Sounds like five years!
Giuseppe Cecchi: Well, more, more than that. We started construction in ’64, we started construction. Between ’60 and ’61 we build the pilot project. ’61, we started the process with Watergate. We finally got the construction started in ’64. We completed the first building in ’65. And then the project was completed in ’71. So it took us about seven years to build it, plus three years of preparation –
A Ockershausen: Amazing project, amazing, ‘mazing, ‘mazing project. And at that time, were you then thinking about going into your own business then?
Giuseppe Cecchi: At that time, not yet. At that time I was still thinking to continue to work here for Societa Generale Immobiliare, and actually we bought the piece of land in Alexandria where we developed a project that against my, my good –
A Ockershausen: Your better judgment.

Watergate at Landmark

Giuseppe Cecchi: Judgment. They called Watergate at Landmark.
A Ockershausen: At Landmark, yes. Way out the highway.
Giuseppe Cecchi: They wanted to capitalize on the name of Watergate. Nothing to do with water there.
A Ockershausen: It was another high-rise, correct?
Giuseppe Cecchi: That is a complex of five high-rise buildings for a total of 1,500 condominium units.
A Ockershausen: Wow! That was owned by the same people in Rome?
Giuseppe Cecchi: No, no. Yeah, same company. And I build about half of it, and then the company had some financial difficulties and some of the stocks were sold because the Vatican used to have a substantial investment in all the public companies in Italy, this was a public company.
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And the Vatican divested themselves and sold it to a financing group that did some speculation and it didn’t go well. So the company decided to reduce their activity. And they say after that project we don’t do anything more abroad and we only will work in Italy.
A Ockershausen: Right, so that cuts you loose then. They don’t need you.
Giuseppe Cecchi: No, I had the choice to move back to Rome and work there, or to stay here and do something else. And by that time, I’d been here already ten years.
A Ockershausen: Had you been married yet?

Meeting Mercedes, Marriage and Honeymoon

Giuseppe Cecchi: I got married in ’68. During the Watergate building I got married. I met Mercedes and we got married and I started having my children here.
A Ockershausen: And Mercedes worked for the airline, did she not when you met?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, she was flying with Pan Am.
A Ockershausen: With great airline, flying all over the south, right? South America?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, and she flew Far East. She flew to Japan, to South America, to Europe –
A Ockershausen: I hope she took you on some trips.
Giuseppe Cecchi: No, the only trips was our honeymoon. Our honeymoon she treated me because she was leaving Pan Am, but she had still a . . . they paid 10% of the ticket to the employees.
A Ockershausen: The airline did.
Giuseppe Cecchi: They could buy the tickets at 90% discount, so in our honeymoon we treated ourself in a first-class trip from Montevideo to Brazil to Mexico –
A Ockershausen: All with Pan Am, of course.
Giuseppe Cecchi: All with Pan Am and back to here. So we had a two week honeymoon.
A Ockershausen: Has she ever, did she go back to Italy with you at all to meet the family?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Every year we go back to Italy and sometimes even more than one time.
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Now last year we didn’t. Mercedes sort of got concerned about what was happening in Europe with all the terrorism and so on, and so she, we decided not to go.
A Ockershausen: She reluctant to go back, huh?
Giuseppe Cecchi: That, but this year we are going.
A Ockershausen: Oh great!
Giuseppe Cecchi: This year we are going. We are going to Capri in June. End of June, we’re going for a ten day.
A Ockershausen: And you’ll see your family in Milano? Are they still there?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yeah, well my family is only my brother. Everybody else –
A Ockershausen: Oh is that right? I met somebody in your family years ago, I don’t remember.
Giuseppe Cecchi: You may have met my brother, who is a priest in Italy.
A Ockershausen: Is that right?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: Well, you share with a very dear friend, Joe Novello
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, yes. Joe Novello is part of our group of dinners that we do.
A Ockershausen: Yeah, great guy. Well we’ve been talking Giuseppe Cecchi about Our Town, a man that put an impact on this town that nobody will ever match, and we’ll be right back to talk about his wonderful life and his wonderful wife.
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Announcer: You’re listening to Our Town.
A Ockershausen: This is Our Town, Andy Ockershausen talking to Giuseppe Cecchi, whose been a big light in our town, and built so much in our city. But I remember most about you, in later years, you crossed the river and did a project in Alexandria on the water, in addition to your Landmark thing. And you did a lot of conversions in Northern Virginia. That was amazing business, was it not?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, well I was really the first one to do a conversion. That was another first of mine that I experimented and it worked very well. In Park –

Virginia Real Estate Development

A Ockershausen: Parkfairfax.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And Parc East.
A Ockershausen: Right. I know them both well.

Parkfairfax and Parc East

Giuseppe Cecchi: Parkfairfax has about 2,600 units, and Parc East is a high-rise, it’s about 400 units. So a total of approximate 2,000 units and we did that without one eviction. Which was the trend at that time with the conversion was they were evicting the population living there in this low, low-income –
A Ockershausen: Yeah, they were losing people.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And they were then renovating completely to another standard and then bringing in people of a different social and economic level. And instead I decided to try to come up with a way to keep the people that were there, there, if they wanted to stay. And so I developed a plan where they could purchase their unit renovated, purchase a unit for the same monthly cost –
A Ockershausen: As they were paying rent.
Giuseppe Cecchi: As they were paying rent. And so for them, it was a transition to have ownership but to pay monthly what is the same. And how did I do that? In two ways. First of all, I limited the renovation to the essential that the homeowner cannot do. Like, you know, replacing the plumbing, and –
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Doing the major things. And, but no frills, no –
A Ockershausen: No frills.
Giuseppe Cecchi: No new refrigerator, no new . . ., whatever was there was there and there’s no –
A Ockershausen: The buyer had to provide that themselves, if they wanted upgrades.
Giuseppe Cecchi: But if they wanted to upgrade there was a sweat equity. But, uh, so to keep the price low, number one.
Number two, in a project like that, with about 2,000 units, there is always an attrition, an actual attrition so about 5% every year gets vacated for some reason or another. And those units that were vacated, I didn’t rent them again. I renovated them, and I sold them to the public at the market price.
A Ockershausen: Market price, right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: So with the market price profit, I was able to subsidize the low price for the rest of them that wanted to stay.
A Ockershausen: What a great thing you did for Northern Virginia.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And, well I have a book of letters of thank you for all those older people that didn’t have to move and we did, the restoration was another important thing. We did the restoration why the people leaving –
A Ockershausen: They stayed there.
Giuseppe Cecchi: We created some social rooms where they could spend the day while the water were cut off and we were doing the work.
A Ockershausen: Amazing project!
Giuseppe Cecchi: And then they were going back to sleep in their own unit. And so that, the first experiment we did in one of the houses that burned down, so we used that as an experiment. It took us about seven weeks to do the process of renovation. By the time we were done with the experiment, it took us about ten days. In ten days we could do the whole renovation.
A Ockershausen: Because you had practice, a lot of practice.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Right, right. A lot of, everything was moving like a machine.
A Ockershausen: I was the beneficiary when you went to the public sale, because through somebody, maybe the name Dick Lawton, was Dick Lawton ever involved, the banker?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, Dick Lawton, sure.
A Ockershausen: That I bought a unit on Martha Custis Drive and I bought one at ParC East, just as an investment.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes.
A Ockershausen: And it was fabulous!
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, good investment.
A Ockershausen: Oh, my God, what a wonderful place. But what did you did to the grounds at Parkfairfax, that was built by Metropolitan Life, I know the story. And that was beautiful land and what you did Park East there with the tennis, it had great tennis courts. I used to play there many years ago. But Giuseppe, now how did you move then to the river? What is it, Vecchio, is that what it’s called, the one by –

Porto Vecchio and Carlyle Towers

Janice Ockershausen: Porto Vecchio?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Porto Vecchio.
A Ockershausen: Porto Vecchio.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Porto Vecchio was right on the river.
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: At the end of Alexandria, and that was just a nice condominium, condominium on the river. And we did that and we did the Carlyle Towers also. The Carlyle Towers –
A Ockershausen: But they were all residential units, correct?
Giuseppe Cecchi: All condominiums.
A Ockershausen: All condos.
Giuseppe Cecchi: The bulk of my activity was condominiums, that was the backbone of our activities. Then –
A Ockershausen: You knew the business very well.

Recession 2007 – 2008

Giuseppe Cecchi: And occasionally we did office buildings, occasionally we did hotels. We did mix use projects again, like Techworld and so on. But the bulk of our activities being condominium. We did the senior communities of Leisure World of Maryland, where we built 2,800 units. And the Leisure World of Virginia, where we built 1,100 units. And then we were caught by the, ’07, ’08, we were caught by the recession so we had to stop so –
A Ockershausen: You weren’t alone. A lot of people got caught by it. But you survived.
Giuseppe Cecchi: I was lucky because I had one building almost sold out, only about 50 units left to sell. And it was a painful sale, but we –
A Ockershausen: You handled your own sales, your company, correct?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
A Ockershausen: You didn’t bring in any –
Giuseppe Cecchi: We had our own sales force.
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: We were doing so much condominium sales that it was economic to have our own sales organization.

Techworld Bridge Washington, DC

A Ockershausen: And then I recall, when you moved into the city, and were doing something spectacular, you’re building these buildings, I had no idea what you were. I’d only known you from reputation and there was a problem between the two buildings that you were gonna put a bridge –
Giuseppe Cecchi: Right, right.
A Ockershausen: And the city didn’t like that. And we couldn’t understand it. So, one of our news people came and said, “This is something you gotta look at.” And we looked at it, said, “There’s no reason for that. They’re trying to stop a view people who don’t have a view anyway.” And we did some editorial. And you kindly thanked us for doing it. And I don’t know if it did any good or not, but that was the beginning of our relationship, and then to see what you did in building this hotel.
Giuseppe Cecchi: That was an uphill battle.
A Ockershausen: I know.
Giuseppe Cecchi: But we, at that time, for the concept was to have high-tech companies use this building, so we needed the connection between the buildings. And we needed to make it all one . . .
A Ockershausen: Absolutely.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And so we finally won the battle, but that was a very –
A Ockershausen: Very expensive.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Uphill battle.
A Ockershausen: I recall it vividly.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: And then when you were doing the dedications, Janice was there, um –
Giuseppe Cecchi: But we did it.
Janice Ockershausen: At that time, I was Harden and Weaver’s producer.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Uh-huh.
Janice Ockershausen: And so you had called, and you invited Harden and Weaver to do the groundbreaking –
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, yes.
Janice Ockershausen: Of Techworld.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, yes.
Janice Ockershausen: And we thought that was so innovative.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes.
A Ockershausen: Absolutely.
Janice Ockershausen: Because you were such a forward thinker, a futurist, before, as you said in the introduction, before Silicon Valley was even around. You were –
A Ockershausen: He was in there doing Techworld!
Janice Ockershausen: You had the idea of technology and putting people who were like minded –
A Ockershausen: In downtown!
Janice Ockershausen: Together. It was a wonderful concept.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, I remember that groundbreaking.
Janice Ockershausen: Groundbreaking, yes.
Giuseppe Cecchi: We had the Mayor there, we had the Governor of Virginia there, and –
A Ockershausen: It was a great event for our town! And it made a statement, Techworld was a wonderful, wonderful facility.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And it didn’t end up to be a high-tech center because eventually the market turned and –
Janice Ockershausen: It shifted, yeah.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And so we leased it to regular businesses.
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Rather than be all high-tech. But it was successful
Janice Ockershausen: But the idea, the thought in bringing that kind of thinking –
A Ockershausen: Just having that name, I thought, was sensational.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yeah.

Owning Hotels is Most Risky Business

A Ockershausen: And then we remember your hotel downtown.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: Which was very –
Giuseppe Cecchi: It was 800 room, Renaissance.
A Ockershausen: Did you sell it, or do you still own it?
Giuseppe Cecchi: I sold it. I sold it.
A Ockershausen: I’d think so.
Giuseppe Cecchi: You know, hotel is a most risky business in real estate development. Because you have an office building, you have leases. You have condominiums you sell them or you have rental apartment. You have leases. You have – the hotel, you don’t have anything. People come in, and go out.
A Ockershausen: Come and go, right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And so something happens, like 9/11 –
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: The hotel was profitable until September. And then –
A Ockershausen: And then –
Giuseppe Cecchi: And then in the last three months, became a huge loss.
A Ockershausen: Oh I bet. People stopped coming to town.
Giuseppe Cecchi: There was no airport working, and so the hotel can change in a few months from profitable to losing because you don’t have anything stable there. You don’t have leases. So I –
A Ockershausen: You got out of the hotel business.
Giuseppe Cecchi: I’ve done several hotels. I’ve done the Vista International, I’ve done this one. I’ve done one in Arlington. But I decided to get out of the –
A Ockershausen: Bye, bye hotel business.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And I sold it well, and so –
A Ockershausen: Good for you. This is Our Town, and I’m talking to Giuseppe Cecchi. This is Andy Ockershausen. We’ll be right back.
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Announcer: You’re listening to Our Town with Andy Ockershausen. Brought to you by Best Bark Communications.
A Ockershausen: This is Our Town, Andy Ockershausen, and we’re talking to the man that built so much of our town and made it what it is. A wonderful, wonderful place to live. And he came from Italy, but he liked it so much he stayed. And he met a gorgeous stewardess from Pan Am, from Uruguay.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Uruguay.
A Ockershausen: And I know the family. So you still have, she still has relatives there, I’m sure.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Oh yes, a lot. We had a family reunion three years ago and we had about 150 people.
A Ockershausen: Wow!

Montevideo Family Reunion

Giuseppe Cecchi: At that lunch –
A Ockershausen: Where were you? Down at the Key West?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Down in Montevideo, in Montevideo.
A Ockershausen: Oh you did it down there, Montevideo.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Oh yes, yes.
A Ockershausen: Oh my, and that must have been wonderful.
Giuseppe Cecchi: We couldn’t move 150 people here. It was easier to move out 21 there.
A Ockershausen: And you didn’t have the priest, your brother’s a priest, correct?

Family

Giuseppe Cecchi: My brother’s a priest.
A Ockershausen: Did he come in for the reunion?
Giuseppe Cecchi: No, no, not for that reason.
A Ockershausen: Does he have a parish in Milan?
Giuseppe Cecchi: He did until he retired because my brother is now 81 year old. And so the priests when they are 75 years, they’re supposed to retire.
A Ockershausen: Is that right?
Giuseppe Cecchi: So he was the pastor of a big parish in Milan, and he had to retire, and then now is still a priest, of course but he works in another parish as just a help, you know.
A Ockershausen: And your boys, I know your four sons, that would have been a great movie, “My Three Sons”, but this is my four sons.
Giuseppe Cecchi: My four sons.
A Ockershausen: Watching your kids be born and grow up is sensational. And three of them are in the business. I bet that makes you very proud.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, yes. I’m proud and I’m thankful, you know, because this is a blessing. You talk to a lot of friends of mine, other people, and their boys or their girls they go to college some place –
A Ockershausen: And leave.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And then they leave. And they are miles away and here I have my four sons, three work with me, so that’s a good recipe to keep them close to home, you know? But the fourth one, who doesn’t work for me, is also staying here. So I have them, all four of them. Two live three blocks from my house. One lives in Georgetown. One lives in Alexandria. But I have them all over, you know. The grandchildren, they come over all the time.
A Ockershausen: Well we enjoy every year so much that Giuseppe for, I don’t know, I guess 20 years, 25 years, how long has it been? That you’ve sent a Christmas card out with it, when there were four little boys.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Right.
A Ockershausen: And now there’s, it’s just like We The People, with 21 grandchildren.
Giuseppe Cecchi: We have 21 in the picture.
A Ockershausen: It’s great! We love it! That’s something to look forward to. Now one of your boys was gonna be a chef. Did he ever follow that?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, that’s the first one. That’s the one that doesn’t work for me. And he graduated as an architect, so I thought he would be the only one working with me. And instead it ended up that he decided to become a chef after he graduated. So I sent him to Italy, and he did the experience in several top restaurants in Italy.
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: And then he came back and he had a position as a sous-chef in Galileo, Roberto Donna, you know –
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: The best Italian restaurant in Washington. But then he got married. And –
A Ockershausen: Aha!
Giuseppe Cecchi: And that doesn’t work, you know –
A Ockershausen: The hours will kill him.
Giuseppe Cecchi: The chef, because he was working till midnight every night.
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: So he stopped being a chef and he went to work for a catering company.
A Ockershausen: But he had a good background, good education.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So he’s doing good, he’s doing good. He has three girls and –
A Ockershausen: There was a man that owned the biggest advertising agency in America and he said the greatest training he ever got was working in Paris as a chef, as a assistant to a chef, where he learned all about life and business and a great experience. His name was David Ogilvy. He was a Brit. But he worked in Paris. And I think about that when I thought about your son. What a marvelous thing it is to be a chef, though.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Oh, yeah.
A Ockershausen: To create. I mean that’s a very creative role, correct?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: And you were creating too when you building this building.
Giuseppe Cecchi: I like cooking also.
A Ockershausen: You like to eat. Well, Giuseppe, what does the future hold for you, for the company, eh? Does it involve selling a lot of –
Giuseppe Cecchi: Well, I’m old, you know, so I would have retired already earlier –
A Ockershausen: You’re never going to retire!
Giuseppe Cecchi: But I have my sons that work for me so, now I’ve given them more responsibilities, so they’re basically, the three of them, are running the operation of the company. I’m still the CEO, and I watch over what they’re doing.
A Ockershausen: Right.
Giuseppe Cecchi: But I’m comfortable that the day I’m not there anymore, that they have so much . . . that they’ve worked for me for over 20 years, and now they are responsible. They’re all managing directors of the company and they –
A Ockershausen: And John was your latest one to join you, correct?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yeah. John, our baby, yes.
A Ockershausen: He got married and so forth. The John was the baby.
Now what about your plans for retirement? You’re gonna stay, you can’t retire, you’re too vital.

On Retirement

Giuseppe Cecchi: No, no. Many friends of mine, after they retire, they get sick, they get, they age much faster, so you have to be involved, and if you like it, and I like it. And I’m lucky because it’s my own company. Otherwise I couldn’t work, nobody would keep me working at 87 years old.
A Ockershausen: You got nobody to come clean to.
Giuseppe Cecchi: But I can stay involved and that keeps me going.
A Ockershausen: Well, what about Mercedes? She’s still playing tennis, of course. She’s –
Giuseppe Cecchi: She plays tennis. She still has her boutique, she’s still running her boutique. And she plays tennis.
A Ockershausen: Is she very active, but I know you were for awhile.
Giuseppe Cecchi: She’s much younger than me, but uh –
A Ockershausen: Rest that shoulder and see if it can come back, because I know how much you liked it, and it was an important part of your life, tennis.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, yes.
A Ockershausen: You built your own course.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, yes, sure, sure.
A Ockershausen: I’m surprised you didn’t buy that indoor club out there by you. But it’s someone else’s building.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Right.
A Ockershausen: You didn’t want to do that. Giuseppe, I can’t tell you how much we appreciate what you have done for Our Town.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Thank you.
A Ockershausen: And all the things that, you give so much to it, all the charity work you do. All the things you’re involved in, because you’ve got so much from Our Town, but you gave it so much, too. And they do go together.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Sure, sure.
A Ockershausen: When you give, you receive.
Giuseppe Cecchi: It’s a two way street.
A Ockershausen: You’re a perfect example of that. And all the people so happy that your sons are getting involved in the community now. Enrico, I see him at the Board of Trade.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, yes.
A Ockershausen: And I’ve known John since he was a child.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: And I can’t thank you enough for all you do, and I don’t know. Janny, is there anything that you want me to ask Giuseppe about?
Janice Ockershausen: No, it was a wonderful interview. We just wanted to say thank you because you have made a major impact in the city.

Remembering Marvin Gerstein

A Ockershausen: And us, too, because what you did with the, when we got involved with Techworld, when we got involved with your hotel as friends, it was great – I can’t remember. Was the guy’s name Gerstein, that used to be your agent advertising?
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yes, yes. Marvin.
A Ockershausen: Is he still alive?
Giuseppe Cecchi: No, no.
A Ockershausen: Marvin.
Giuseppe Cecchi: No, he passed away.
A Ockershausen: And Marvin was a delightful guy.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Marvin was a great advertising person.
A Ockershausen: Marvin called me when we did the editorial, I’ll never forget that. I said, “We don’t know this man, we don’t know anything about him, but the city is tying him up and that’s wrong! And the city should pay for that.” But that was a long time ago.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: But it was great.
Giuseppe Cecchi: That was a time when I was doing uphill battles. Now I don’t do uphill battles anymore. I just select the easy –
A Ockershausen: Sit back and let it happen.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Right.
A Ockershausen: This has been Our Town, Andy Ockershausen talking with Giuseppe Cecchi and the man has got so much love and it’s expressed in so many ways and thank you for Our Town.
Giuseppe Cecchi: Thank you.
Announcer: You’ve been listening to Our Town, Season 2, presented by GEICO, our hometown favorite, with your host Andy Ockershausen. New Our Town episodes are released each Tuesday and Thursday. Drop us a line with your comments or suggestions, see us on Facebook, or visit our website at OurTownDC.com. Our special thanks to Ken Hunter, our technical director, and WMAL radio in Washington, D.C., for hosting our podcast. And thanks to GEICO. Fifteen minutes can save you 15% or more on car insurance.