Our Civic Pride series centers on some American cities that have nothing to be ashamed of. They are global hubs of culture, cuisine, and quintessential hotels. Part three winds up in Washington DC.
Skip down to the hotels. Or, see our Civic Pride lists for Chicago and Portland.
Lately it’s become de rigueur to accuse certain American cities of being hellish war zones. Our hometown, New York City, was an early and ongoing target of these fabrications. All cities have their issues, of course — it’s the nature of so many people living in such close quarters — but those issues are the price we gladly pay for easy exposure to a world’s worth of different lifestyles and traditions.
If that’s not for you, that’s fine. All New Yorkers also yearn to look up from the kitchen sink and see fields of lavender and a Bambi or three. I regularly pine for the desert, and grew up in a wooded suburb, happily exploring the forest. I took a bus to school, which was a blast, but always wished I lived close enough to take a bike. My daughter, who’s in second grade now, walks to school, only a couple blocks, and along the way we see dozens of her friends and their families. We often say it’s like living on Sesame Street, brownstones and all.
When I was on that school bus, wishing I was on my bike, I never would’ve thought my child would do me one better, in Brooklyn of all places. We don’t live in fear. We’re not surrounded by crime and riot. You can take the subway in and out of Manhattan every day and not have a single inconvenience caused by anything other than an outdated signal system. Ironically, the only thing that worries me about my daughter eventually walking the city on her own is that indelible symbol of the suburbs: the car. The streets are safe. Crossing them, on the other hand, requires vigilance.
Our Civic Pride series looks at essential hotels in great American cities, starting with Chicago, Portland, and DC. We have colleagues and close friends in these places, and like us in New York, mostly they’re just bummed by the undeserved negative attention they’re receiving. And it goes without saying that none of this is good for the tourism industries. In fact, one Portland hotel sent an email recently asking that people not be fooled by the headlines, confirming that the city is alive and well and remains “radically friendly, wildly creative, and unapologetically itself.”
That’s a lot to be proud of.
Eaton DC
Downtown — Washington D.C., USA
Eaton is one of the most impressive boutique hotels in America, thanks in large part to its founder, Katharine Lo. She’s the Hong Kong–born, Yale-educated daughter of the chairman of the Langham group, so the basics of high-end hospitality are second nature. What makes the Eaton special is everything else, particularly its unapologetically outspoken social-justice ethos — this is a hotel that wears its politics on its sleeve.
Hotel Nell – Union Market
Union Market — Washington D.C., USA
Nearly a century after a seed factory took up residence in an industrial building in the Union Market district, the landmark was reborn as the stylish Hotel Nell. A connection to the past is an essential part of the hotel’s ethos: it’s named after Nell Bolgiano, matriarch of the Bolgiano Seed Company. A horticultural theme endures, with lush shades of green enlivening the interiors and live foliage framing the Treehouse bar.
Hotel Zena
Downtown — Washington D.C., USA
Continuing the project that began with the 2017 Women’s March, the Viceroy hotel group has made a statement with what used to be the Donovan — after a large-scale renovation it’s been renamed Hotel Zena, and is now a grand feminist gesture, dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of women at every turn. As gestures go, it’s not a subtle one — a pair of female “Warrior Guardians” adorn the exterior.
Hotel Washington
Downtown — Washington D.C., USA
Who says there’s nothing stylish to be found in staid old D.C.? The Hotel Washington is taking its design insurrection straight to the heart of the city. Despite the trademark funky interiors and youth-culture borrowings, the Hotel Washington pays plenty of homage to the history of what used to be, and its interiors preserve quite a lot of its Beaux-Arts grandeur, underneath a welcome gloss of contemporary color.
Riggs Washington DC
Downtown — Washington D.C., USA
It’s not every day a 19th-century Romanesque Revival bank building in Washington’s Penn Quarter district reopens as a hotel, especially one as stylish as Riggs. It starts with the well-preserved bones of the stately old bank, but this is no mere restoration — they’ve taken liberties, using the city’s history as their inspiration, adding a welcome note of playfulness to the elegance you expect from a Washington D.C. luxury hotel.
Rosewood Washington, D.C.
Georgetown — Washington D.C., USA
For visitors to Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood, high-end accommodations have long been provided by the usual big-name suspects. For an experience that’s smaller in scale, but similarly high in standards, there’s a newer option. On the banks of the C&O Canal, Rosewood’s 55 rooms, 12 suites, and eight townhouses show the influence of modern boutique-hotel hospitality, adapted for a luxury-hotel clientele.
The Dupont Circle Hotel
Dupont Circle — Washington D.C., USA
In a town as traditional as Washington, a little bit of modern design goes a long way. The newly redesigned Dupont Hotel is, in its subtly stylish way, one of the hippest hotels in the nation’s capital. It’s the only hotel on Dupont Circle, in a neighborhood better known for dining, nightlife and entertainment than for monuments or institutions — which, provided you’re not here with your high school history class, is definitely a good thing.
Yours Truly DC
Downtown — Washington D.C., USA
Yours Truly, a member of IHG’s Vignette Collection, is one of the new breed of boutique hotels that aims to create an atmosphere of approachable sociability, rather than luxe elitism, and while its modernist, industrial architecture may recall the first wave of high-design boutique hotels, its interior decoration is warm and eclectic, and feels more collected than consciously designed.
The LINE DC
Adams Morgan — Washington D.C., USA
A century-old church in Adams Morgan provides the venue for The LINE DC, a boutique hotel in an of-the-moment bohemian-eclectic style, complete with restaurants and bars that make it a central player in the neighborhood’s dining and nightlife scene. There’s a grain of truth to some of the stereotypes about the nation’s capital, but there’s nothing sleepy or unstylish about the LINE’s vision of the city.
Pendry Washington DC – The Wharf
Southwest Waterfront — Washington D.C., USA
Physically, it’s not all that far from Capitol Hill, but in terms of its aesthetics and its atmosphere, the Pendry Washington DC – The Wharf presents a completely different side of the nation’s capital. It’s clear from a glance at its ultra-modern façade that this is no ordinary luxury hotel, and its setting on the waterfront lends it an escapist aspect as well.
Mark Fedeli is the hotel marketing and editorial director for Tablet and Michelin Guide. He’s been with Tablet since 2006, and he thinks you should subscribe to our newsletter.