What a drag to leave the White House. Forget the perks of being the First Family, the full staff, that plane, those helicopters. Put aside the history of it all—that they eat and sleep and shower in the nation’s most storied museum, and the state dinners and private concerts. The place is 55,000 square feet. It has 35 bathrooms, a thriving garden, a basketball court, a movie theater, and a bowling alley. Politics and personal style aside, it is the mansion to end all mansions.
Which is why it could be a sad state of affairs when a president and his family has to leave. The Obamas still have seven months before the moving truck rolls in, but it seems as though they have found themselves another mansion in an old-moneyed section of the nation’s capital in which to console themselves.
According to sources who spoke to Politico on Wednesday, the family will lease a 8,200-square-foot home in Kalorama—a stone’s throw away from a number of embassies, two miles from the White House, and about a 10-minute ride from three SoulCycle locations (no doubt a priority for the First Lady). The home, a beautiful red-brick Tudor built in 1928 on a tree-lined block, belongs to Bill Clinton’s former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart and his wife, Giovanna Gray. The family scored an ideal tenant to look after their home while Lockhart serves as executive vice president of communications for the N.F.L. and Gray works for Glamour.
Most presidents hightail it out of D.C. once their term is up. George W. Bush retreated into the solitude of his Texas ranch, and Clinton tucked into the relative privacy of his Westchester home. The Obamas, however, are planning to stick around, opting to remain in the nation’s capital long enough to let their youngest daughter, Sasha, finish high school. (Malia will be taking a gap year before starting college at Harvard University in the fall of 2017.)
Barack and Michelle chose a $5.3 million home that does afford them a certain amount of privacy and presidential dignity. On a quarter-acre in the same neighborhood that five former presidents settled into, the gated home boasts nine bedrooms, eight and a half baths, a courtyard, a terrace, a formal garden, a two-car garage and parking for 10 vehicles, according to Zillow. They will need space to accommodate the Secret Service members who will still protect the family even after a new president is sworn into office. The president could convert one room into a putting green; the First Lady could turn another into a community garden or a SoulCycle room of her own. It may be a tighter squeeze than the White House, but moving into a more traditional home is a change the Obamas could probably use after nearly a decade in the spotlight. The adjustment to the new digs will undoubtedly be easier for the current First Family than it will be for the Trumps, if they have to leave their 24-carat floating Versailles on Fifth Ave for the comparatively cramped confines of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Melania is just going to have to make do.
