We've lived here for 12 years. It's the ideal place for our situation. *It's a 100 y/o building but they have worked hard to keep things up-to-date. Sure, the wooden floors creak - take an apartment on the 3rd floor and you won't be bothered by it. *Steam heat by radiator keeps things nice and toasty in the winter and two window a/c units take care of my 900 sq ft - 2 br unit. *Some apartments have screened-in porches. Others have a small balcony - some of which have a great view of the fireworks in July. *Electricity, heat and water are all included in the monthly rent. Maybe on the high end, I don't know. My grandpa used to say "It costs money to live in town". *The building is secure. Rarely ever a problem with someone being let in by accident. *Never had an issue with rodents, but I have 2 cats. Regular pest extermination so I've never seen bugs. *All of my maintenance requests have been dealt with very promptly. *Beautiful garden courtyard and a side patio with gas grills and picnic tables. Free coffee machine in the lobby. Fitness center. Bicycle storage room. Laundry room. Package delivery lockers. New corner grocery store with a huge selection replaced an older 7-Eleven. Liquor store, dry cleaners and Stachowski's meat market all within a block. A quiet neighborhood that for the most part zips up after 10pm. *Best of all, as someone who lives without a car, the public transit is very ideal. Three bus routes serve the building, each one connects with the subway, less than a mile away. One route crosses the entire city, serving Georgetown Univ., George Washington Univ., K Street, Chinatown, Union Station/Capitol Hill, and the RFK Stadium site. read more

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I would not recommend living here. I've lived in Kew Gardens for eight years; you can do better for your money in this area. Rent continues to go up while management continues to do less. My sink faucet leaked for six months. My shower faucet hasn't worked for a year. Paint is peeling. Floors desperately need to be refinished. The wood roaches are in season. The building manager has refused to meet with me to discuss these issues. Kew Gardens used to be a nice place with long-term residents, social activities, and friendly and responsive management. Those days ended with the pandemic. Now it's just a profit squeezing machine. read more

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Living at Kew Gardens is a dream. Honestly, I've lived in cities all over the world and this apartment complex is one of the best. It's clean and beautiful. Management (Eric!!) is responsible and responsive. The neighborhoods are mostly quiet. There are apartment-wide events every few months--recently we had Mexican food and a Mariachi band. Anytime we've had a maintenance issue, it was taken care of quickly. Also, my husband and I want to live car-free, and we can do that easily here. Everything we need is within walking and biking distance. We also have multiple buses around us; 2 on our block and others nearby, and the metro is a 12-ish minute walk, or 3 minute bus ride. There's a market nearby where we do most of our grocery shopping and a Trader Joe's only a 15-20 minute walk away. And if you're a Woolf fan, well, it's a pleasure to tell folks you live at 'Kew Gardens.' :) read more

My experience at Kew Gardens was average-- pros and cons on both sides. Overall a pretty affordable spot in a great area, however there are some tradeoffs to be aware of. I lived there for about 1.5 years, and feel I upgraded after moving out to a much larger apartment in the same neighborhood, which I pay only slightly more for. Pros: - Grounds: Beautiful grounds inside of building (garden and lily pond) - Gym: Small gym inside of building, very convenient and often empty - High Safety: I always felt tremendously safe in this building and neighborhood. I never heard of anything being stolen, or any break-ins. I forgot to lock my door sometimes and never had any issues or fears. Entry into apartment building requires electronic FOB key, which works well, and a basic key is used to access apartment. Some apartments had peep-holes while I lived there, mine did not, but I didn't feel like this was really needed because it did see, so safe there. - Great location, 10 minute walk from West/End, Dupont/ Foggy Bottom, and M Street in Georgetown, situated in a beautiful and quaint part of town - Reasonable price for area-- I paid about 1650 for about a 450 sq. ft studio, which is decent for this area (lol) - Allow pets, including bigger dogs, depending on breed clearance. I believe you can have up to 2 pets. There is an associated fee for this. - Building management makes an effort to host events and to get residents talking to each other - Nice that electricity and water are included in rent - Jose the maintenance man was nice and responsive. I did like him a lot. A lot of the cleaning staff were really kind as well. I want to distinguish these kind folks and hardworking from the management. Cons: - Mice (not rats) in my apt-- building did respond and try to get them out, but I would see one every couple of months at least. They were honestly tiny and kind of cute mice, but still... - Older building- had issues with bathroom: very poor water pressure, bathroom once fully flooded while I was at work due to random plumbing issue) - Very frequent repairs and inspections on various parts of apartment, at one point it felt like repair were entering my apartment almost every week - While I lived there, constant construction, for months on end. Loud, halls totally stripped of paint, carpeting (see pic). I would imagine it is all nicely renovated now but for several months extremely invasive construction. No consideration of prorating rent during periods of disruption during which there was no floorboard or paint on walls for several weeks - Halls definitely smell of weed/smoke sometimes,which wasn't a huge deal for me, but friends remarked on when visiting - Had a mandatory fee to keep packages in a secured locker. Not sure if this policy has changed since I moved, but I don't think this was entirely necessary. I mentioned earlier, this building seems pretty safe and well-secured. - I also found the management to be incredibly condescending and generally unpleasant, aside from the repairman mentioned above, who was pretty nice. -Situation with visitor: Friend, who had his own house in DC but stayed over in apt 2 nights a week, was asked by management to obtain background clearance which required purchase, due to his casual visits to my apartment. Though he presented documentation confirming he owned and resided nearly full-time in property elsewhere, he was accused of living fully with me. I do understand why they asked for this, for security's and transparency's sake, (and also because he would sometimes bring his dog along ) but found it to be incredibly nit-picky/demanding given the many other annoyances management frequently subjected their tenants to. - Sound: Thin walls and floors that don't muffle any sound-- this didn't bother me too much, but I definitely could hear my neighbors quite a bit - Flooring: Part of why I selected the apartment was due to the nice hardwood floors, which were heavily featured in apartment tours. However, the management asks that you cover up a large percent of the floor with carpeting or some other type of covering in order to muffle sounds from other apartments. Due to frequent repairs, drop-ins, and inspections, I felt I had to comply with this, though I was secretly sad I couldn't enjoy the nice hardwood floors a bit more Other notes: Many of the folks that live in this neighborhood and also in this building seem to be long-term residents. Definitely an older crowd than I expected, though there were some young families as well. Overall not too many other younger single professionals that I encountered. Not a complaint here, just an observation. read more

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It's called Kew Gardens, not Key Gardens ;-) I lived here for 2.5 years when I first moved to DC - I enjoyed living here but didn't realize how much until I started apartment hunting and moved across town. My one bedroom was huge and had a screened in porch. The office staff was awesome - maintenance requests were taken care of in a timely fashion, notices were slipped under our doors whenever anything of note happened, and the office was great with packages - they'd usually go as far as to leave mine in my apartment for me since they knew I got home late a lot! The building is old and not in the best shape - I had them unclog my bathroom drain once and it burst the pipe and took a few days to fix. I used to blow fuses while using the microwave, there's no central air (but they provided a window unit and a ceiling fan) but that's kind of what you get in this kind of neighborhood for the price I guess. (They are redoing units as people move and apparently my old apartment now has a dishwasher and a new stove!). The location is great, especially for Georgetown grad students - 1 mile walk to campus, buses to both sides of campus, 7/11, dry cleaner/tailors, corner market and liquor store all within 2 blocks, being near Rose Park means lots of great places to be outside/go running and the D1/2/6 buses stopped literally under my window making getting to Dupont Circle (closest metro) or downtown really easy. Trader Joe's is also about about 8 blocks away which is nice. If you care about location (and Georgetown is your choice of location) and value good management this is a great place to live. read more

They treat you amazingly while you live there; when you move out, you can forget it. Any questions you have about getting your deposit back or anything take forever to get a response, and the response is entirely unhelpful. When I inquired about the laundry I realized I had left behind, they told me they had thrown it away. They wouldn't even donate the clothes. They've ignored my email regarding that. read more

Would not recommend moving in here. Disorganized management will enter your apartment constantly. Smells like cigarettes in hallways and cigarette smoking in gardens enters apartments through your windows and AC unit. Shared laundry room is filthy and stocked with old and rarely-maintenanced machines. Many apartments suffer from reoccurring mice/rodent problems. And its over-priced. read more

I lived in a studio at Kew Gardens for a little over a year. I really liked it here and was sorry to leave; management was always nice, and my apartment was great. I had no major problems here, but there are some issues at Kew Gardens: 1. The building fire alarms frequently (about once per 2-3 months) went off in the middle of the night or very early in the morning for no apparent reason. The first time it happened, I figured that these things happen. But the second time I found myself standing outside in the pajamas at 4am, I started getting annoyed... 2. There is a new and IMO draconian package policy. They no longer will accept "large" packages (I don't remember the exact dimensions - something pretty small, though, like 18" on each side or something). What an inconvenience, especially in a time when so much shopping is done online. The other thing is that although Kew Gardens is priced very reasonably for Georgetown as a whole, it is significantly more expensive than its major competition, located at 2501 and 2511 Q Street NW. I genuinely liked my apartment and enjoyed living here, but it wasn't ideal, especially for the price. read more

My husband and I lived here for two years in a studio apartment on the second floor with a balcony, facing lots of nature. Pros -Management is probably the best in the entire DC metro area. All of them make a great team and are very responsive and on top of everything. -Beautiful real hardwood floors. -Nature and close proximity to hiking, parks, grocery stores, shopping center, entertainment, meetups, universities, everything you need. -Quiet and feels a lot more like a community. -Free yoga and bootcamp class at the gym. -Hassle free and secure mail pick up. -All utilities included. -Safe! We only heard about a few car break-ins. We walk around at night all the time both together and individually and did not experience any problems in two years. It's quiet and safe. -There are a lot of rich/famous people here so the security/cops are in abundance. -So many gardens and pretty landscaping. All the homes are a work of art and it feels like you are walking around in a village in the countryside of France. -Cost is affordable compared to other places nearby and you have better management here. -Some are renovated and have dishwashers and stainless steel appliances with granite countertops and washer/dryer in unit! -7/11 next door opened 24/7 -Pet friendly! -Beautiful private garden with a fountain in the courtyard. Cons -No central air in any of the apartments. Why we moved -We personally could not afford a 1-bedroom there at the moment and needed a larger space closer to our jobs. -We miss the nature and community there already :( read more

My company manages the fitness center at Kew Gardens. The apartment management on site and Bernstein management are top notch. The gardens in the center of the complex are beautiful. It's an older building, but it has tons of character. And, the management has added a great gym and indoor bicycle storage with pumps and a repair station. read more

We loved our time at Kew Gardens. When it came time to leave DC after a year, we were very sad at having to leave this quaint, charming, well-managed and well-maintained building. Pros about this place: Building facilities: The bike room was newly renovated just before we moved in (I could be wrong, I was distraced by the gym). While we were there, the laundry facilities were revamped and the Parcel Pending system installed. All these to show how the management continuously improves systems and facilities. Trash is cleared every single day. I remember one long weekend Saturday when the trash room was over spilling with trash from parties, and my husband worried about long-weekend-old trash. But nope, the trash was still gone the next morning. Front office staff: We interacted largely with Marina and Harvey. Marina is a little colder, but still extremely professional and you can always trust her to get things done. Harvey is the leasing manager, who is in early in the morning and out late at night, sometimes even way after his working hours. Flashback to when we first came into Kew Gardens, dropping by on a whim as we drove past after seeing another apartment. Me and my husband looked and perhaps dressed way younger than we actually are, about to start school in georgetown with seemingly no means of paying rent - and still he took us around the building and showed us multiple units multiple times - no impatience, no airs, no pushiness. Harvey represented Kew Gardens well, and we liked what we saw there. When we decided on renting the place and requested to move in asap, the office including Marina and Harvey rushed the paperwork on our behalf. Maintenance: The maintenance staff is mostly friendly. The building is old, no doubt, but the maintenance staff is always tinkering away somewhere improving the building. During our one year stay, the sink got clogged once, the fridge broke down once, the laundry dryer broke down once. For all of these requests, never was I kept waiting for a response for more than 10 minutes! The rectification also happened as fast as the staff could make them. Very impressed. Location: A hop and skip (walkable-distance) away from Dupont Circle, M-Street, Trader Joe's, Safeway and multiple museums. When you are suddenly craving hot cheetoes at 1am in the morning or if you have forgotten to buy into that $1b powerball lottery, there is a 7-11 around the corner. When you are cooking and running out of tomatoes, there is Stachowski's (though it is a meat deli) and Steele's market just minutes away. The bus stops for D1, D2, D3 & D6 are also literally by the doorstep. ParcelPending system: Never had an item go missing. The newly installed ParcelPending system allows minimal human interaction for people who do not like to make small talk, minimal shame for people who overshop, and convenience for nocturnal people who may choose to pick up parcels at 4am. Garden: We had a unit whose windows opened out to the garden. It is gorgeous in spring and pretty in fall, and extremely uplifting during winter. Cons: Mice: We encountered two very small mice over our year here. The maintenance staff jumped on it immediately, and we placed traps around the apartment, but never did catch any. The exterminators came immediately, and placed traps too, but also never did catch any. Most holes in the apartment are plugged, so it still is a mystery to us how the mice came about. Some say all city dwellers would come across rats at home. Prior to this I have lived in NYC for about 2 years without having seen rodents at home, so I am not sure how true this is. Noise: Walls aren't that thin, but we could always hear our neighbors upstairs. We could vaguely hear their muffled speeches, but mostly them stomping around. We called them Thunderfeet. In conclusion, we have not lived in DC before, but viewed up to 8 places in the georgetown/Arlington area before immediately falling in love with this place, and stopped ourselves from signing a lease with another apartment just in time. This place was perfect for us, a young childless couple schooling in georgetown university. We owned a car, but could get to school by bus/bike and even walking. Price is steep but justified taking into consideration all the wonderful things about the place. I could have lived without the mice episode, but given a chance would still choose Kew Gardens. read more

I was in contact with Juanita, a leasing agent and this review is for the terrible service I received. I never even got to see the place - I will soon move to DC from Illinois and happened to be in the area, and was really interested in these apartments. She did not seem to understand that me being there only for 2 days meant I did not have much room in my schedule. Finally I set up an appointment, drove 2 hours just to see the place and then get an e-mail shortly before the appointment that the apartment I was about to view is taken. Just one sentence, nothing else. I replied right away asking if I can view a different apartment (there were several available) or just visit. Never received a response back. Well I guess I will look for apartments next door. read more