Problem with Mice in Rooms
I must admit up front that I was totally surprised to stay at one of the highest rated TripAdvisor hotels in DC and have such a horrible experience. If you have stayed at other 4.5 star TripAdvisor hotels, you will surely be disappointed in this one. If not for having mice in our room(s), I would still have only rated this hotel 2 bubbles. 
There are 4 main reasons why you should not book this hotel:
 1) Live mice in the rooms
 2) Street noise (the rooms on the outside of the hotel)
 3) Way overpriced for what you get
 4) Staff is average and not what you expect at this price
I try to be fair in my reviews and give the good and bad points equal time. However I need to make an exception and focus first on one of the worst things about this hotel -- they have a BAD problem with mice. I would like to spare you the pain of discovering this for yourself and advise you to book elsewhere. 
MOUSE PROBLEMS
Upon check-in late on a Sunday evening, we were informed that we had been upgraded to a Robert Mills Suite on the second floor. This sounded nice, except that the second floor is actually at the same level as the street. So when we walked into the room, there were street lights at eye level and lots of street noise as well. The room looked somewhat nice, although it was clearly tired from lots of use. 
Our biggest problem started as we began to make up the sofabed for our kids to sleep in. I always check under the sheets in hotels for signs of bedbugs, and this looked OK. Unfortunately there was mice feces under the sheets and on the bed. See my attached photo as evidence. 
We had to split up our family of 4 into 2 separate rooms on floor 1 (which is the basement) to sleep that night. No signs of mice that I could see in those rooms at that point. Although I did not know where to look at that time. 
We were given a different Robert Mills suite at the other end of the building for the next night. On the third night I awoke to the sound of a high pitched squeak. It was dark and I did not want to wake my wife, although it sounded like it was coming from the walls. In the morning while the family was in the bathroom getting ready, I found the source of the noise (my kids were asking about it as they packed up and I had to lie to them and say it was a bird in the walls). 
Behind the TV console was placed a rodent glue trap. You can guess what was inside of it and making noise. I took some photos of the trap and attached to the review so you can see where to look behind the cabinet. You can even see the back part of the mouse sticking out from the trap. 
We packed up immediately and went down the street to the W Hotel and finished our vacation there. The front desk apologized over and over of course, and they were very generous to zero out our bill. They even picked up the tab for our final 2 nights at a hotel down the street. They tried to make it right, but the damage was done at that point. 
We had problems with mice in 2 different rooms on 2 different sides of the building. There was a glue trap in the room. Need I say more to prove that there is a bad mouse problem at this hotel? Don't take your family here, please. 
STREET NOISE
If you happen to get a room on the outside of the hotel, you will hear a lot of street noise all night long. There is nothing the hotel can really do about that, but please be aware that this is something you might have to deal with. It is not faint, it is loud and it goes all night. 
WAY OVERPRICED
The hotel has great marketing and sells itself as a "boutique" hotel. This is just a way to make you think that paying a lot of money is worth it. It is not in this case. The rooms are undersized, the beds are not that great, and the decor is worn and tired. The bathrooms in our suite however were nicely done and clean. 
The only thing worth paying for is the location. I found the location in Penn Quarter to be great. It was walking distance to everything, there was a great restaurant selection everywhere, and there was never a moment I felt unsafe walking around with out kids at night. 
STAFF
I found the front desk staff to be under-trained and very mechanical. At this price level, I expected to be welcomed and taken care of by a more professional staff. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad service. It was perfectly acceptable for a Hampton Inn, but it was not at the level of what you would expect at a highly priced hotel. 
FINAL NOTES
The front desk will say that they did not know about the traps which may be true, but between the cleaning crew and the extermination company someone had to know and someone had to approve this. Hotel staff and management definitely know that there is a mouse problem. 
If a hotel has a mouse problem that is so out of control it requires traps in the room, then there should not be people in that room or in that hotel until the problem has been resolved. If you decide to stay here, the first thing to do is look behind the TV console and check for a glue trap at least. I suspect they will have removed them after our stay and after this review gets posted. I beg you not to stay at this hotel until their mouse problem is resolved. There is no way this hotel should be in the top 15 DC hotels even without a mouse problem.