Bruce has a good eye for design, architecture and decorations and we appreciate his compliments. On the downsides however, he was inaccurate in 2 out of his three points. The area it is not insalubrious at all. This is a very quiet area with wide streets and boulevards, one of the oldest in Washington DC. Like the city itself it has gone through a resurgence in the past 15 years and it is considered one of the nicest neighborhoods. Our neighbors are mostly young professionals who work in various capacities, in the government, the private sector and the congress, which is a few blocks away. All extremely nice people, some with young children.
The distance to the grocery store is about 4 blocks walking and 3 minutes driving through 4th or 5th street. Yes there is a public housing on the 6th street but you can elect to go a different route, a shorter one if you wish. But even the public housing shouldn't be considered a less desirable. This is a public housing for senior citizens.
The noise was an issue due to a couple of young boys running around in the early hours of the morning. We added plush carpets on the floors upstairs ( breaking our hearts to cover 110 years old beautiful red oak flooring but it had to be done) and instituted a 9pm-9am quiet time policy for the upstairs guests. And since we took these actions we have not had any noise concerns.
Bruce and his family were great guests from Australia and he wrote this review the evening of his check-in day, sort of a first impressions type of thing. After 5 days of stay they left for Boston and then came back and stayed 2 more days. By then I assume the area was not as "Insalubrious" as he may have thought on the first night.