The Presidential Party Crasher's Pad

• January 14th 2010

by Tim Brown

Last week, news broke about yet a third party “crasher” at the now-infamous White House state dinner. It soon came to light that the allegedly uninvited guest, Carlos Allen, runs the Hush Galleria Social Club, a local party group that hosts events at a Mount Pleasant mansion located at 3102 18th Street NW. And what type of real estate website would we be if we didn’t look into the story behind this house?

One thing is for sure, the name “hush” is very befitting of the organization. Few details about the events are made public. According to the Hush Galleria website, “cultural, casual and black tie events are planned and held monthly for the sole purpose of ‘fundraising’ where the donations are immediately presented to selective charitable organizations.” Neighbors say that they have observed several private events during random weekday evenings, complete with limousine chauffeurs, valet parking, and a red carpet entrance.

The house itself is a stately Victorian six-bedroom, 5.5-bath row home. Although it is used as an event space, its original layout as a single-family home has been maintained, and from the outside it is hard to tell that anything out of the ordinary goes on there.

According to District tax records, the house is owned by Anna M. Allen (a relative, perhaps), and it looks like she would like to get it off her hands. Over the past two years, the home has been on and off the market, with a list price fluctuating between $949,000 and $1,050,000. As recently as last Tuesday, the house was listed for sale on Craigslist.

That listing was later removed, and the house has also been withdrawn from the multiple listing service. However, if anyone is looking to buy a large home in Mount Pleasant that has an interesting story to go along with it, we imagine that the Allens are still willing to sell.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the_presidential_party_crashers_pad/1677.