Dupont Circle Party House Forced to Shut Down Until Owner Gets License

• May 15th 2015

by Lark Turner

The owner of a Dupont mansion that’s been rented out on Airbnb for years will be forced to stop offering the home for short-term rentals until it’s properly licensed, a DC Superior Court judge ruled on Friday.

Judge Maurice Ross ordered Douglas Jefferies, the owner of 2220 Q Street NW (map), to stop conducting business at the property. That means no Airbnb or other rental use of the building until he gets properly licensed from DCRA. The government said in a release last week that Jefferies had never made attempts to permit the house. Jefferies is the founder of Results Gym, yoga studio Stroga in Adams Morgan and volunteer organization Mission Results.

Jefferies will have to get the home inspected and pay $8,000 in fines. If he’s eventually licensed and allowed to rent the home out, no more than eight people will be permitted to occupy the home at a time when it is being rented.

The six-bed, five-bath house had been offered on Airbnb as the “Celebrity House Hunter Mansion” for $1,200 a night, and guests were allowed to have large parties with hundreds of guests provided they paid Jefferies extra. In its initial statement, the attorney general’s office said police have been called to the property more than 100 times between April 19, 2014 and April 12, 2015.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dupont_circle_party_house_forced_to_shut_down_until_owner_gets_license/9897.