Number One Observatory Circle
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Number One Observatory Circle is the official residence
Official residence
An official residence is the residence at which heads of state, heads of government, gubernatorial or other senior figures officially reside...
of the Vice President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
.
Located on the northeast grounds of the United States Naval Observatory
United States Naval Observatory
The United States Naval Observatory is one of the oldest scientific agencies in the United States, with a primary mission to produce Positioning, Navigation, and Timing for the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Department of Defense...
in Washington, DC, the house was built in 1893 for its superintendent. The Chief of Naval Operations
Chief of Naval Operations
The Chief of Naval Operations is a statutory office held by a four-star admiral in the United States Navy, and is the most senior uniformed officer assigned to serve in the Department of the Navy. The office is a military adviser and deputy to the Secretary of the Navy...
(CNO) liked the house so much that in 1923 he took over the house for himself. It remained the residence of the CNO until 1974, when Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
authorized its transformation to an official residence for the Vice President. The congressional authorization covered the cost of refurbishment and furnishing the house.
Before that time, the Vice President lived in his own home, but the cost of providing security for these private residences had become prohibitive.
Although Number One Observatory Circle was made available to the Vice President in 1974, three years passed before a Vice President lived full-time in the house. Vice President Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
became President before he could use the house, and his Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
, primarily used the home for entertaining since he already had a residence in Washington. Vice President Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
was the first Vice President to move into the house. Every Vice President since has lived there.
The Vice Presidential mansion was refurbished by the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
in early 2001, only slightly delaying the move of then Vice President Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
and his family.
Queen Anne style
The house is built in the Queen Anne styleQueen Anne Style architecture (United States)
In America, the Queen Anne style of architecture, furniture and decorative arts was popular in the United States from 1880 to 1910. In American usage "Queen Anne" is loosely used of a wide range of picturesque buildings with "free Renaissance" details rather than of a specific formulaic style in...
popular in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Hallmarks of the Queen Anne style are an asymmetrical floor plan, a series of rooms opening to each other rather than a common central hall, round turret rooms, inglenook
Inglenook
An inglenook , or chimney corner, is a small recess that adjoins a fireplace.Inglenook may also refer to:*Inglenook, California, community in Mendocino County...
s near fireplaces, and broad verandas wrapping the ground floor, all of which are found at Number One Observatory Circle.
When the house was constructed, its exterior was faced in terracotta brick. The wood trim was painted in a warm putty-gray, and the wooden porch in a combination of the putty-gray and white. Window frames and mullions were painted the same gray, and shutters were painted olive green. The interior was furnished mostly with the personal furnishings of the Naval Observatory Superintendent, and later those of the Chief of Naval Operations
Chief of Naval Operations
The Chief of Naval Operations is a statutory office held by a four-star admiral in the United States Navy, and is the most senior uniformed officer assigned to serve in the Department of the Navy. The office is a military adviser and deputy to the Secretary of the Navy...
. Period photographs of the interior show middle-class nineteenth-century furnishings in a variety of styles, including Eastlake
Eastlake Movement
The Eastlake Movement was a nineteenth century architectural and household design reform movement started by architect and writer Charles Eastlake . The movement is generally considered part of the late Victorian period in terms of broad antique furniture designations...
. Walls were covered in patterned wall-papers.
By the first decade of the twentieth century, Victorian-style architecture
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
had begun to fall out of fashion. Many houses that were originally built in brick, or in wood with complex painting, were simplified and "colonialized
Colonial Revival architecture
The Colonial Revival was a nationalistic architectural style, garden design, and interior design movement in the United States which sought to revive elements of Georgian architecture, part of a broader Colonial Revival Movement in the arts. In the early 1890s Americans began to value their own...
" by being painted white. This frequently happened inside as well as outside, and substantial wood millwork
Millwork
Millwork is any woodmill-produced building construction interior finish components such as doors, window casing, baseboard, mantels, and crown molding....
of mahogany
Mahogany
The name mahogany is used when referring to numerous varieties of dark-colored hardwood. It is a native American word originally used for the wood of the species Swietenia mahagoni, known as West Indian or Cuban mahogany....
, quarter-sawn
Quarter Sawing
"History of Quarter Sawn Wood"Henry W. Maley is known as the Father of Quarter Sawed Oak. He was the owner of an Edinburgh, Indiana saw mill. In 1881, he accidentally discovered the method of sawing, while filling an order for a cabinet maker. He turned the large log, cutting it on the bias to get...
oak, American chestnut
American Chestnut
The American Chestnut is a large, deciduous tree of the beech family native to eastern North America. Before the species was devastated by the chestnut blight, a fungal disease, it was one of the most important forest trees throughout its range...
and walnut were often painted over in white to "lighten" rooms and make them feel more contemporary. In 1961 the exterior of the house was painted white, the color it still retains.
1974 renovation
The 1974 renovation replaced and updated building systems and increased the size of several rooms by removing internal walls. As a part of this renovation, interior trim was painted white and the walls a palette of mostly neutral colors. Little consideration was given to historic preservation with interior or exterior spaces, and no attempt was made at restoration of any interior space to its appearance at the period of construction or early use. The 1961 era white paint on the exterior was retained. Second floor shutters, which appear in an 1895 photograph, were reinstalled.Interior furnishings
Most of the furnishings placed in the house following the 1974 renovation were twentieth century copies of either colonial or Federal style pieces. A notable exception was a bed placed in the house by Nelson Rockefeller. The bed was designed by artist Max ErnstMax Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
. Called the "cage" bed, the headboard had the form of a Greek pediment, and the baseboard a lower version of a pediment. Sculptural foliage similar to olive or laurel leaves wrapped around the posts. The seal of the Vice President of the United States
Seal of the Vice President of the United States
The Seal of the Vice President of the United States is used to mark correspondence from the U.S. vice president to other members of government, and is also used as a symbol of the vice presidency. The central design, directly based on the Seal of the President of the United States , is the...
was incorporated into the headboard. The Rockefellers twice offered the bed permanently to the house but it was turned down both by Vice President George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
and Vice President Dan Quayle
Dan Quayle
James Danforth "Dan" Quayle served as the 44th Vice President of the United States, serving with President George H. W. Bush . He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Indiana....
. On visiting Barbara Bush at the house, Mrs. Rockefeller offered her the bed, and Mrs. Bush responded "you are always welcome in this house, but there's no need to bring your own bed." The Rockefellers did leave a lithograph called "The Great Ignoramus," several antique Korean and Japanese chests, and nearly a dozen other pieces.
When the Mondales occupied the house, Joan Mondale
Joan Mondale
Joan Adams Mondale is the wife of Walter Mondale, the 42nd Vice President of the United States and later the U.S. ambassador to Japan. She is an advocate for the arts....
introduced more saturated upholstery and wall colors and contemporary art. Like the Rockefellers, the Mondales brought some Asian antiques into the house. The Bush family, working with interior decorator Mark Hampton, used a palette of celadon, lime, and light blue. The Quayles removed the lime green and used off-white. The Gores oversaw a complete redecoration, the addition of a new dining-room table, new furniture for the library, and a substantial renovation of the grounds and porches to make them more suitable for outdoor entertaining. Immediately before the Cheneys moved in, some needed work on the air conditioning and heating was performed and the interiors were repainted. The Cheneys brought several pieces of contemporary art into the house.
The three-story brick house—completed in April 1893—is compact, 39 by 77 ft (11.9 by 23.5 m), with 9150 square feet (850 m²) of floor space. On the ground floor are a reception hall, living room, sitting room, sun porch, dining room and small pantry, and lavatories added later to the north side. The second floor contains two bedrooms, a study, and a den. The third floor attic was originally servants' quarters and storage space. The kitchen was placed in the basement, along with a laundry room and other storerooms.
Underground bunker
On May 17, 2009, Newsweeks Eleanor Clift reported that Vice President Joe BidenJoe Biden
Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. is the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama...
revealed that there is an underground "9/11" bunker under the house. It was speculated that the bunker was built in December 2002 when neighbors complained of loud construction noises. Elizabeth Alexander, the Vice President’s spokesperson, explained the following day, “What the vice president described in his comments was not — as some press reports have suggested — an underground facility, but rather, an upstairs work space in the residence, which he understood was frequently used by Vice President Cheney and his aides."
See also
- White HouseWhite HouseThe White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, official residence of the President of the United StatesPresident of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.... - Blair HouseBlair HouseBlair House is the official state guest house for the President of the United States. It is located at 1651-1653 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., opposite the Old Executive Office Building of the White House, off the corner of Lafayette Park....
- List of official residences