Historic Hotels in Washington, D.C.

The neighborhoods

Where to stay, by area

Downtown, Lafayette Square and Penn Quarter

Lafayette Square, the park across from the White House, is the center of a National Historic Landmark district of about 30 buildings from c. 1815–1940. The Hay-Adams faces the square, and the Sofitel fills a 1928–29 office building a block away on 15th Street. The Willard and Hotel Washington stand near the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, the route of inaugural parades. The St. Regis and The Capital Hilton are at 16th and K Streets, the Hamilton Hotel faces Franklin Square at 14th and K, and The Mayflower is on Connecticut Avenue.

East along Pennsylvania Avenue, Penn Quarter’s Downtown Historic District centers on 7th and F Streets around the Old Patent Office, now the National Portrait Gallery. The Kimpton Hotel Monaco fills the marble General Post Office there, and Riggs an 1891 granite bank. Back on Pennsylvania Avenue, the Waldorf Astoria fills the Old Post Office of 1891–99, whose clock tower rises 315 feet.

Dupont Circle, Embassy Row and Kalorama

The Dupont Circle Historic District, about 3,100 buildings from c. 1875–1931, is known for Victorian rowhouses and turn-of-the-century mansions along L’Enfant’s diagonal avenues, and Massachusetts Avenue from 17th Street to Observatory Circle is ‘Embassy Row’, a boulevard of mansions and embassies. The historic stays around the circle are small: the Tabard Inn fills three N Street rowhouses, and the Swann House is an 1883 house on New Hampshire Avenue with 10 rooms. The Jefferson, at 16th and M Streets, sits between Dupont Circle and downtown.

Up Connecticut Avenue, The Churchill Hotel fills a 1902 apartment house in the Sheridan-Kalorama Historic District, and the Washington Hilton, opened in 1965 at T Street, is a D.C. landmark that preservation officials call an important example of Modern design.

Georgetown

Founded by the Maryland Assembly in 1751 as a port town, Georgetown became part of the District of Columbia in 1791 and kept its own charter until 1871. The whole town is a National Historic Landmark district (1967), with many of the city’s oldest buildings on narrow grid streets; landmarks include the Old Stone House (1765) and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Both of its hotels in this guide are 1960s buildings inside the district: the Georgetown Inn on Wisconsin Avenue, opened in 1962, and The Graham on Thomas Jefferson Street, just off M Street.

Capitol Hill

The Capitol Hill Historic District is one of the oldest and most architecturally varied parts of the city, with about 8,000 contributing buildings, mostly rowhouses, and commercial strips along 8th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue SE. The Phoenix Park Hotel, opened in 1927 as the Hotel Commodore, stands on North Capitol Street near Union Station, just outside the historic district.

Foggy Bottom and the West End

Luigi Moretti’s curving Watergate complex (1963–71) on the Potomac holds The Watergate Hotel; D.C. preservation officials list the complex both for its Modernist planning and for the 1972 break-in that made its name a byword. Inland, the George Washington University/Old West End Historic District takes in the 1920s apartment house that is now Hotel Lombardy, at Pennsylvania Avenue and I Street. Farther out Pennsylvania Avenue, the Melrose Georgetown Hotel stands between Washington Circle and Georgetown, despite its name.

Shaw, Mount Vernon Square and Logan Circle

The Logan Circle Historic District is a nearly unchanged late-19th-century neighborhood of large brick and stone houses, about 135 contributing buildings from c. 1875–1900, built around one of L’Enfant’s circles. To the south and east, Shaw and Mount Vernon Square grew after the Civil War as an economically and racially mixed rowhouse neighborhood along the old streetcar lines. The Morrison-Clark Historic Inn joins two 1860s townhouses at 11th and L Streets, and the Henley Park Hotel, on Massachusetts Avenue, fills a 1918 Tudor Revival apartment house.

Woodley Park and Adams Morgan

Woodley Park was platted in the 1870s but built up mostly from about 1905 to 1938, as rows of houses in a park-like setting with apartments and shops along Connecticut Avenue; its historic district counts about 395 buildings. The Omni Shoreham, opened in 1930, sits at the edge of Rock Creek Park on Calvert Street, just outside the district, and the Woodley Park Guest House is an early-1900s house on Woodley Road. In Adams Morgan, the LINE DC uses the 1912 First Church of Christ, Scientist for its lobby and restaurants, but its guest rooms are in a new addition behind the church, so we don’t list it.

Before you book

Planning your stay

Getting around

Metrorail fares run $2.25 to $6.75 one way, depending on distance and time of day; tap a SmarTrip card or a contactless bank card at the faregates on the way in and out. Reagan National (DCA) has its own elevated Metrorail station connected to Terminal 2, and Dulles (IAD) is on the Silver Line, its station linked to the main terminal by a tunnel with moving walkways. From BWI, a free shuttle runs to the airport rail station for MARC trains to Union Station (about 30 minutes), near the Phoenix Park Hotel; a taxi or rideshare to D.C. takes about 45 minutes.

Parking

None of the historic hotels we checked offers free parking, so plan on valet. Overnight valet runs $64 at Riggs, $65 at The Watergate Hotel, $65 plus tax at The Graham, $68 at The Hay-Adams and the Phoenix Park (tax included at both), $69 at the Hamilton, $78 at The Willard and $80 plus tax at the Melrose. The Willard and The Graham include in-and-out privileges; the Phoenix Park doesn’t. The Tabard Inn charges $49.99 plus tax for valet or points guests to a nearby garage at $26 a night, and the Woodley Park Guest House asks guests to reserve its paid parking when they book.

When to go

Spring is peak season: the National Park Service says the Yoshino cherry trees most often reach peak bloom between the last week of March and the first week of April (March 26 in 2026, March 28 in 2025), and the National Cherry Blossom Festival runs March 20 to April 11, 2027. Summers are hot, with a normal July high of 89.6°F at Reagan National (NOAA 1991–2020 normals). Inaugurations push rates up sharply: in the week ending January 25, 2025, D.C.’s average daily room rate rose 78% from a year earlier, to $285.56.

Accessibility

Metro says all of its rail and bus services are accessible. Historic hotels vary, so check each one before you book: the Tabard Inn says its buildings have no elevators, while Sofitel Lafayette Square and the Hamilton Hotel list ADA-accessible room types.

Before you book

Quoted rates exclude D.C.’s 15.95% hotel tax, as the Tabard Inn notes, and some hotels add nightly fees: The Willard charges a $35 amenity fee and the Melrose a $29 ‘historic preservation fee’ plus tax. Book early for cherry-blossom season and inauguration week, when demand and rates peak. At the Morrison-Clark, ask for a Victorian room in the original houses; most rooms are in 1987 and 2013 additions. The Kimpton Hotel Monaco says pets stay free and Riggs takes dogs of all sizes for a $100 fee, while the Woodley Park Guest House takes no pets and no children under 8.