Carlos Allen: From Neighborhood Nuisance to White House Gate Crasher

The world may now know Carlos Allen as the third member of a White House gate-crashing trinity.

I know him as the annoying guy down the street in my Washington, DC, residential neighborhood of Mount Pleasant who used his property as a "private club" and operated the house as a de facto event hall that could be rented for parties and other "events." Under the name Hush House (which he claimed was an acronym for Help Us Support Humanity, and not a nod and a wink to "Hey, we're running a private club in a residential neighborhood"), Allen's parties flooded the neighborhood with cars, limos, puzzled party attendees who didn't really seem to understand what they were doing in Mount Pleasant, and the required bouncer at the door (who practiced his "security glare" at annoyed passers-by on their way home or to Mount Pleasant Street for a beer at the Raven).

Or as Allen's current website puts it:

The HushGroup is an exclusive and luxurious private social club whose members enjoy unparalleled access to elite movers and shakers. The club is located in the heart of the vibrant, multi-cultural and northwest corridor of prominent Mount Pleasant and in walking distance to our infamous neighbor, the Adams Morgan community.

Famous, infamous, whatever. At least I now know I live in a prominent neighborhood.

The fact that using his property as an event hall seemed to conflict with Washington, DC, zoning and liquor laws didn't seem to faze him much until pressure was brought to bear on him by his Mount Pleasant neighbors. The events then quieted down, the property placed for sale by, if my memory serves me correctly, a "motivated seller."

Well, with no one apparently willing to pay his million-dollar asking price, the "for sale" sign is now gone from the front of his house and Hush House is now apparently Hush Galleria. The same tacky interior of the house remains. There's a new set of goofy pictures of Allen displaying his ham-handed social climbing wrapped in faux philanthropy. And Allen has propelled himself from reborn neighborhood nuisance to White House gate crasher.

As a former housemate's grandfather used to write in the margins of the tattered news clips he'd send relaying this or that outrage as reported in his local paper: "What a country!"

Yet, unlike the District of Columbia government -- which tends to pay scant attention to things like enforcing zoning and liquor laws when it comes to "entertainment" (the favorite ruse here is the nightclub masquerading as a restaurant) -- I suspect that the federal government may be a little more severe in its response to Allen's skirting of the rules.

 

Comments

[rugbyguyzgirl]

09:19 AM on 01/06/2010

You totally have my sympathy. His parties started out as swingers' parties and he indeed used the house as a club. He doesn't even live there, he only used it to throw parties. So this is truly not about an occasional party. And he is fixated on being one of the "beautiful people".

[Bee OPlentee]

09:36 AM on 01/06/2010

He'll never become one of us, regardless of his fixation.

[peowlemeow]

03:49 AM on 01/06/2010

Another take on someone I just heard about yesterday.­Some of this informatio­n is just not relevant to my life.

[unbeatable]

09:59 PM on 01/05/2010

they can't even manage to keep track of 300 people at the White House how can they possibly keep our country safe...so unqualifie­d,,,so scary

[sja11]

10:18 PM on 01/05/2010

newsflash, you can't ever be 100% safe.

its a crazy world, get used to it

[wadenelson1]

12:02 AM on 01/06/2010

who is this "they" to whom you refer?

[minigun]

05:40 PM on 01/05/2010

From the git-go the party should have been open to the public. (Democrats are such elitists.)

BTW: I kept waiting to read where your neighbor brandished a gun of some sort-- what gives?

[oldandintheway1]

09:08 PM on 01/05/2010

Do you open YOUR parties to the "public"?? If soi i'm waiting for MY invite to your next party.
Who is "elitest now??

[unbeatable]

10:00 PM on 01/05/2010

I think she was joking but BO said he would run an "open White House"..am­ong other things that aren't happening

[MtPgirl]

05:09 PM on 01/05/2010

I live around the corner from Carlos and have always found him to be very nice. However, a lot of Mt Pleasant neighbors seemed a little put off by having mostly black people show up by limo or taxi in this white enclave of the city for a party at his house. He probably asked $1 million because the one next door fetched that much, and it's not an unreasonab­le ask for a large house in that part of town. Also, it should be noted that when the neighbors complained­, the parties died down. No big deal. That's how it's supposed to work. Don't hear too much from the neighbors about the white college kids and yups who also throw loud parties and pee in the alley and leave their beer bottles in the yard. Wonder why that is.

[85Percent]

12:12 AM on 01/06/2010

Perhaps a good comparison would be if one of the neighbors homes was turned into a Frat House. An inconsider­ate party given by neighbor A and then a month later one is given by Neighbor B, and probably not including any mutual acquaintan­ces, is not the same as someone running a club out of their home. Not parties, a club. Regularly. Drawing traffic, crowded parking, etc. Every weekend. It would have been out of line for anyone of any race to impose on neighbors in such a way, and he should have never even needed to be told to stop. He should have had the common decency to know better to start with. Any party that gets out of line needs a visit from the constabula­ry, and college kids hopefully will learn better behavior when they grow up. Mr. Allen, we assume, is a grown up already.

[Jackie Dillard]

02:59 PM on 01/06/2010

I've been to Carlos's parties too and I've met him on a few occassions and like MtPgirl says -- he's a nice guy. I lived in Columbia Heights for quite some time and even I noticed the difference in the flavor of my community compared to MP. Mount Pleasant was more old money white folk who did not want a bunch of black folk roaming through their neighborho­od every so often.

85Percent if you've never been to the House then don't speak on what you don't know. It is NOT a club and there were never parties every weekend. And for the record the homes/mans­ions in that neighbor are very wellknow for hosting parties/fu­ndrasiers etc. Try driving by on a Saturday night during re-electio­n time when all the politician­s and raising money...pa­rties on every block.

[MycroftHolmes28]

04:51 PM on 01/05/2010

What does this post have to do with dumping on the 2nd Amendment, Josh?

[beccasmecka]

03:45 PM on 01/05/2010

Sounds like a lovely neighbor..­..NOT!
What's with all the smarminess in DC?

[JBS]

04:29 PM on 01/05/2010

DC's "local" government is ultimately the United States Congress. They have a mayor, and a city council (I think) - non-voting observers in Congress & 3 electoral votes.

But Congress runs the place.

[unbeatable]

03:26 PM on 01/05/2010

300 people invited...­.why is it so hard to control that???

[overcat]

07:00 AM on 01/06/2010

Ask the Secret Service, they made the mistakes. You and your republican spin machine can try to make as much political hay out of this as you want to, but the facts are in, and the Secret Service has owned up to their failure to maintain adequate security.

[CongaPlayer]

11:02 AM on 01/06/2010

Two skyscraper­s in Manhattan. Need I say more?

[unbeatable]

03:15 PM on 01/05/2010

it really shouldn't be that difficult to control who attends a party...wh­y can't this administra­tion even get that right?

[Caroleeena]

04:37 PM on 01/05/2010

It shouldn't be that hard to determine fake documents from Niger before rushing into a war against a country that did not attack us and which had no weapons of mass destructio­n. How about a little perspectiv­e here? And why blame the administra­tion for the mistake of an individual when you won't even blame Bush and Cheney for mistakes they clearly made themselves­?

[doublels]

08:44 AM on 01/06/2010

And these aren't even mistakes. They were out & out lies.

[thehuff]

08:07 AM on 01/06/2010

@Unbeatabl­e, Yeah one would think that it shouldn't be so difficult to keep track of three hundred guests coming into a party. One would also think it shouldn't have been so difficult to keep track of a few large jets (and the passengers­) flying toward NYC and D.C. back on Sept 11, 2001. Which "gate crashers" do you think had more impact on the Country (and ultimately­, the World)?

[progressivegreg]

02:31 PM on 01/05/2010

You have my sympathy. This guy makes the "Bumpuses" (Jean Shepards neighbors in "In God We Trust") look positive.