Chalfonte

My partner and I have lived in the Chalfonte for one year.
The good:
We love the location — close to the metro, grocery stores, restaurants, parks, etc. The building is a beautiful old pre-​war building that is in pretty good shape. We pay $ 1730 for a 700-​square foot one bedroom on the second floor. The apartment itself is nice but has no frills. We have nice plaster walls (very sound proof), large rooms, high ceilings, nice wood floors, and fairly new windows. We don’t have a dishwasher or laundry in unit, but there’s a laundry room (and basic gym) in the basement. AC is not central, we have window units. The building staff are very friendly and very responsive. Maintenance requests are acknowledged and addressed within 24 hours, if not sooner.
The not so good:
The building uses inefficient lighting in the apartments (incandescents/​halogen bulbs primarily), and you can’t remove the window ACs in the winter, which makes for very drafty windows. We asked the maintenance crew to seal the windows with the AC units in them to reduce drafts. If the management company spent a little time and money to properly seal the windows with ACs and install high-​efficiency lighting, they would definitely see the payback in their reduced heating and electricity bills.
There is a persistent roach problem. We are very good about not leaving food or dishes out, and we have a cat who is highly entertained by the roaches and keeps them at bay in our apartment, but we do see on average about one per week.
The washers and dryers in the laundry room are also pretty old and inefficient, and I don’t think the washers clean clothes too effectively.
Parking is difficult in the neighborhood. Good luck finding a spot at peak times (evening) that’s less than a half mile away.
TL;DR:
You definitely get what you pay for at the Chalfonte — most apartments are priced below market-​rate for the neighborhood, and it’s definitely a no-​frills place. However, that is fine for me and my partner at this stage in our lives (no kids, late twenties, easy-​going). For now, the good outweighs the bad, and we foresee living at the Chalfonte for the next year at least.

I’ve lived in the Chalfonte for about a year now and the best I can say about it is it’s not a dump. Its proximity to the Metro and to various attractions in Adams Morgan/​Columbia Heights, excellent as it may be, is a matter of circumstance and says nothing about the Chalfonte’s business or management philosophy.
Renting a small studio will cost you somewhere around 16,000 dollars a year, and it goes up from there. While I don’t begrudge any business making money, it is irritating that they seem to reinvest as little of that money as they possibly can in property maintenance and improvements, even when it is in the interests of both the renter and landlord. Here are a few examples: The old toilets waste water, not using LEDs in the hallways means wasted electricity, the old appliances (e.g., air conditioner, refrigerator) waste energy, and so on.
This slumlord mentality is clearly seen in that improvements or fixes are not even designed to last the length of your lease. When I moved in they «remodeled» the bathroom, which consisted of painting everything, including the tile. The paint started peeling off the tile in about six months. The «refinished floors» looked like they hadn’t even been swept before the finish was applied as there was hair and garbage stuck in the finish. The kitchen cabinets don’t have knobs. Old cable/​telephone lines are never removed, they simply paint over them.
All of this speaks to a slumlord mentality where the management company seems to feel that they are in some sort of adversarial relationship with their tenants. Building-​wide notices about rules and problems are mostly centered around the tenants causing problems with trash disposal or maintenance issues. Additional rules are made with threats of eviction if they are not followed. While I understand the need for rules, many of them seem to be arbitrary and poorly conceived. For example, you see those wood floors in the pictures but they don’t tell you up front that you are required to cover 80 percent of your floor with rugs. Why don’t they just tell you that if you damage the floor you pay for it? Does there need to be a rug rule?
To sum it up, The Chalfonte is one of those places that you move into and immediately begin looking for a better place. They have priced their apartments at the point of making you irritated but not quite motivated enough to move until you find something that you’re sure is better.

There are some good things about the Chalfonte: the workout room, location, and the friendly maintenance man. I lived in the building for over three years. During that time, everyone in my hall had turned over twice in each apartment as did the front desk staff. Each time I would email a work request, the employee had left. The water was constantly shut down several times a month for maintenance.
Though in a good location, on early Saturday and Sunday mornings expect to hear drunkards stumbling back to their cars, verbal fights, and being woken up every so often. This article was published in the spring of 2014, shortly after this incident, several of the tenants moved out.
Also, note the street, Argonne Place is located on a fire lane and fire trucks go down the street several times a week. When viewing the apartment, I asked Mr. Luis Morales (former employee) if this was a fire lane and he flat out said no…
I left my bike in the communal/​key fob locked bike storage. Much to my surprise, an anonymous/​fellow Chalfonte resident stole my back mud flap rutter and swapped seats. I brought this up to the desk clerk and she could’ve cared less about my complaint.
As we were moving out, we placed the city permit signs to not park where we would park the moving truck (e.g. Argonne Pl). That Saturday night, some random people actually cut off and stole the signs, so when we woke up the Sunday morning, we had to call the police to ticket the vehicles, which added an hour and half to our move. It created some last minute drama to move out of the building.
One thing I am disappointed with was the administration. The building manager ignored my inquiry emails about my rental deposit whereabouts. I had to inquire with the Bernstein accounting office. My rental deposit check was 20 days overdue (they forgot to add pet deposit fee) and I had to physically go the accounting office to pick up the check. The check had been sent twice and they didn’t pay attention to detail (e.g. NE not NW).
All and all, I would not recommend.

We lived here for 3 years and really enjoyed it! The location is absolutely perfect — in the midst of Adam’s Morgan, Mount Pleasant, and Columbia Heights, yet on a quiet tree-​lined street. The staff are very friendly and helpful, and the building is always working to ensure that the buidling is excellent condition by retouching paint in the hallways, etc. There is a great gym — it’s small but clean and has TVs and lots of lights — the only one I’ve seen of its standard in the older buildings of DC. I lived in a large studio first and then moved into a one-​bedroom, both were larger than average with lots of light. The kitchen are a bit small since it’s a old buildling (built before the open concept craze). Overall, a great place to live and enjoy DC.

dungeonesque complete with roaches, rats, screaming homeless guests, and washers and dryers that actually make your clothes infinitely more filthly. fact: someone gets trapped in the elevators like once a month, which should be embarrassing for management, but they seem used to the disarray. the staff can be helpful and friendly, which makes it tolerable.
1^st floor smells like a morgue before refrigeration was invented.
roaches roam the halls day and night

The Chalfonte Apartments, managed by Bernstein Management, are great. I have lived here for six+ years and though I admit to be looking forward to moving into a newer building, I am sad to leave the Chalfonte.
Located near the heart of Adams Morgan, one of Washington DC’s most exciting neighborhoods, the Chalfonte has a location that is almost perfect — walking distances to dozens of great bars and restaurants and 10 – 15 minutes from downtown Washington. A restored former French hotel, the apartment building has a lot of personality, though I will say that if you don’t like old buildings, you may not like the Chalfonte (or most apartment buildings in Washington DC for that matter!!!)
The staff of the Chalfonte are also great. Maintenance requests are responded to promptly and the service is generally performed with a smile.
Overall, I would highly reccomend this apartment building for anyone looking to move!