But for the Charles’ owner, Friedman, such celebrities are just regular clients.

“I’m really excited to have my closest and dearest friends at the hotel,” Friedman told The Crimson through a spokesperson Wednesday.

Even the hotel’s premier dinner restaurant, Rialto, got some Democratic spirit, offering up new menu items like the Ballot burger, Liberty lobster, and Revolution salad—complete with red tomatoes, white croutons, and blue cheese.

The party kicked off at the Charles last Sunday with a youth forum on voting called “The Power of One,” hosted by Cambridge’s vice-mayor Marjorie Decker and Lethal Weapon star Danny Glover. It continued at the Clintons’ private bash on Monday night at the Noir Bar in the hotel lobby.

The hotel also played host to various groups, like the White House Project, the National Democratic Institute and the DNC Finance Committee.

As for security?

According to Zunz, it doubled around the hotel this week. There were even security officers roaming through the hotel’s famous breakfast restaurant, Henrietta’s Table, which was named after Friedman’s pet hog.

“Secret Service only protects the person they are assigned to protect, so we have to offer other protection,” Zunz said.

The Clintons are known to stay at Friedman’s Martha’s Vineyard house when they visit there in the summer, and Clinton appointed Friedman chair of the National Capital Planning Commission, a group that offers guidance for federal land building in the D.C. region, in 2000.

Friedman is the president and CEO of Carpenter & Company, Inc., a national real estate and investment firm that runs the Charles Hotel Complex in Cambridge, the Logan Airport Hilton Hotel in Boston and the St. Regis Hotel and Condominium Tower in San Francisco. He graduated from Dartmouth College and coached the Harvard College skiing team from 1964 to 1971.

—Staff writer Lauren A.E. Schuker can be reached at schuker@fas.harvard.edu.