Watergate apartment bought for record $3.1 million

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By AFP

WASHINGTON -

An apartment in the Watergate complex, best known for the break-in that brought down President Richard Nixon in the 1970s, has sold for a record $3.1 million, the Washington Post reported Monday.

Tech entrepreneur John Lee bought the three-bedroom, 3,700 square foot (345 square meter) unit overlooking the Potomac River to complement his main home in an outer Washington suburb, the Post said on its real estate blog.

It's the highest price ever paid for a co-op apartment in the Watergate, which has long struggled to live down its reputation as the site of the June 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters.

In the ensuing scandal, one of the worst in US history, Nixon became the first president ever to resign from the White House as it emerged that his administration tried to cover up its involvement in the crime.

"I think there is more open-mindedness about the Watergate now than there maybe was for a few decades," real estate agent Gigi Winston, whose father was the original leasing agent for the Watergate, told the Post.

Property prices have held up well in Washington in recent years despite a slump almost everywhere else in the United States, thanks in part to an influx of new residents drawn by government-related jobs, real estate experts say.