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- Number One Observatory Circle. When Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff move into Number One Observatory Circle in Washington, D.C., they will be the eighth vice-presidential family in American history to do so.
- The Grounds. Built in 1893, the home is located on 12 of the 72 acres of land that comprise the U.S. Naval Observatory, a government agency where scientists work on providing astronomy-related insights for the U.S. Navy and Department of Defense.
- The Architect. The 33-room Victorian-style property was built by Washington resident and architect Leon E. Dessez, who had a hand in creating plans for the Washington Monument before he passed away in 1918.
- The Design. According to author Charles Denyer, who has written one of the most detailed books on the property, titled Number One Observatory Circle, the three-story house cost approximately $20,000 to build.
Jul 20, 2022 · Vice President Kamala Harris has one heck of a property portfolio - San Francisco to Los Angeles to Washington DC. Check out these Kamala Harris house photos!
- Sarah Paschall
- Rockefeller’s Bed
- Eleanor Mondale’s Ghost
- Secret Service Pranks
- Enjoying The Privacy
- Residential Mysteries
- Famous visitors
- Sharing The Grounds with History and Science
Although Nelson Rockefeller never lived in the residence, using it only for social functions, the bed in the master bedroom was the talk of the town. The vice president to then-president Gerald Ford personally chose the $35,000 “cage bed” by the surrealistic artist Max Ernst. Barbara Walters described it in a book as “covered in mink, watched over ...
Convinced she was being visited by a ghost one night, Walter Mondale’s teenage daughter Eleanor called the Secret Service to report a man in her room. When the agents burst in with guns drawn, Eleanor explained it was a fleshless man she’d sensed. “They requested I never do that again,” Eleanor recalled in a 1998 interview. (Years later, Dick Chene...
Secret Service agents were not above pranking each other during the long, and often tedious hours they spent protecting the Second Family. One agent, for example, convinced another it was perfectly fine to do his laundry at the residence. That came as a surprise to Barbara Bush, who at the time was Second Lady under Ronald Reagan, nonetheless found...
One of the main reasons vice presidents and their families enjoyed the residence is the relative privacy and seclusion it offered. Wanting to keep a low profile even when ordering pizza, the Quayle family appropriated the name of one of their Secret Service agents, Joe Petro. The tradition stuck. Even after leaving public office, the Quayles still ...
After the Bushes developed Graves’ disease, and their dog also acquired an autoimmune disease, water tests were conducted at the various homes they had lived before moving into the White House. And the eight years they’d spent at One Observatory Circle were the longest they’d lived anywhere. The water testing made the then-occupants, the Quayles, n...
Foreign dignitaries, political leaders, media heavyweights, and artists are among the luminaries who have socialized at the residence. When Andy Warhol attended a gathering Joan Mondale held for modern artists, the vice president’s press secretary got the bright idea of asking him to sign a can of Campbell’s tomato soup in honor of one of Warhol’s ...
The vice presidential residence is not the only noteworthy aspect of the 72-acre compound. The Naval Observatory provides the astronomical and timing data used by the Navy and other components of the Defense Department. The library, one of the nation’s top scientific libraries, holds more than 800 rare books, including works by Galileo, Copernicus,...
- Supreme Court Correspondent
Jan 22, 2021 · The vice president's residence is located on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are settling into their new home at the White House.
Number One Observatory Circle, often referred to as the Naval Observatory, is the official residence of the vice president of the United States. Located on the northeast grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., the house was built in 1893 for the observatory superintendent. The chief of naval operations (CNO) liked the house ...
