The Hepburn is a beautiful building that unfortunately falls short considering the price points of the units. My experience has been similar to other recent reviews.
The roof is probably the best in DC and the concierge staff and head maintenance person are great, friendly, and empathetic. I would not change a thing about those aspects of living here.
The downsides:
The amenities on the roof look amazing but the grills, refrigerators, and TVs are frequently broken or out of service. I don't remember the last time using these features and all of them working flawlessly. Currently, every outdoor refrigerator is broken, the outdoor showers by the pool do not work, all but one or two of the grills either the electric ignitor is broken, the grill light is broken, or the gas doesn't work. The TVs in the two cabanas also do not work. So when you tour you see all these amazing features but when you live here you realize you rarely can actually use them as you may have imagined.
Since COVID, it also feels somewhat like living in a dorm with lots of rules, restrictions, and emails chiding residents about behavior (even though everyone seems to be responsible about wearing masks, social distancing, etc). You are extremely restricted on accessing the roof and the gym. I understand the gym needing to maintain an occupancy limit, but the roof is a huge outdoor area that pre-COVID was never crowded and now you must go down to the concierge desk, give your license for a separate fob to go up. The fob will stop working right at 11pm on the dot and they clear everyone out. Before they opened these areas up at the end of June, they had completely shut down every common area in the building rather than pursue a more reasonable policy of ensuring social distancing. Since a huge part of what you are paying for is having these areas available to get out of your tiny apartment, it killed the entire value proposition for the building.
There was little communication or empathy from management on this during the shutdown period. This gets to the other problem, which is sometimes the assistant property manager can be adverserial and dismissive towards residents. I've talked to other residents and the general grievances we shared were lack of empathy and responsiveness when dealing with serious maintenance issues (think stuff like major electrical problem, plumbing, etc), inquiries about status or condition of amenities, and also leasing/renewal questions (this is especially relevant given everything going on right now with COVID).
Bottom line, it seems sometimes it is forgotten that this our home, and everyone here is paying a really high price point on the expectation that issues get resolved quickly, with proper consideration to making sure we're satisfied, with the resolution through a follow up or proper coordination in addressing the issue in the first place. It doesn't feel like they are concerned with keeping us as residents once you've signed the lease. read more