USA TODAY International Edition
Where does the VP live? New book will show you
Naval Observatory residence has seen few occupants and even less recognition
WASHINGTON – The vice president wasn’t offered an official residence until 1975 — and Nelson Rockefeller wasn’t interested.
Walter Mondale, the first vice president to live in the home the government provided, lost hot water midway through his first shower.
Despite the humble beginnings of the vice presidential residence, Mondale — and his successors — came to love the Queen Anne-style house on the grounds of the Naval Observatory. Some past residents argue it’s a better place to live than the White House.
The new book Number One Observatory Circle tells the story of a home that the public knows little about — including that it’s still technically a temporary location for the nation’s second family.
“Ask almost any American where the vice president lives, and you’re almost sure to get a look of confusion,” author Charles Denyer wrote.
Some of the unfamiliarity can be attributed to the fact that the home is secluded, its 12-acre compound just part of the 72 acres of the U.S. Naval Observatory grounds, 2.5 miles from the White House. Unlike the White House, there are no public tours.
“If you don’t know about it, it’s not there,” Denyer said in an interview.
And then there’s the fact that the vice president didn’t get an official home until 174 years after presidents first occupied the White House.
Despite being only a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, the No. 2 was often seen as insignificant. Even through most of the 20th century, vice presidents lived in a range of personal homes that included small apartments, modest estates and suburban tract homes.
But the growing relevance of the job, the increased security concerns and a sense of embarrassment led to Congress passing a law in 1966 setting aside 10 acres of land on the U.S. Naval Observatory grounds for a future vice presidential home. But the $75,000 the law authorized to build a house was never spent. Concerned about the appearance of spending the money while the Vietnam War raged on, Vice President Hubert Humphrey asked that the project be indefinitely delayed as “an example of prudent budget practices.”
It would be eight more years before Congress would come up with a new plan. Instead of building a house on the Naval Observatory property, the vice president would — temporarily — take over the home already occupied by the chief of Naval Operations.
The current resident, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, opposed the move and trashtalked the house to members of Congress. When he was unable to dissuade the congressional committee chaired by Virginia Sen. Harry Byrd, Zumwalt unsuccessfully ran against Byrd in 1976.
“Mondale told me the notion that the chief of naval operations had to give up the home for an elected official, the vice president, was just simply intolerable” to Zumwalt, Denyer said.
Mondale was the first vice president to live in the residence because Rockefeller preferred to stay in his luxurious mansion after the house formally opened as the official vice presidential residence in 1975. Rockefeller used the residence only for social events.
Betty Ford had chosen the silver, linens and china for the home, but Gerald Ford became president — and Rockefeller vice president — before the Fords could move in.
Mondale remembers the house, built in 1893, as being “about the way it was left when the Navy left it, so there was nothing fancy in there.” Part of the floor in the basement, where the kitchen is, was still dirt.
Dan Quayle refurbished the putting green and added an exercise room, pool house and swimming pool — the latter earning the gratitude of Joe Biden.
“No one can say a negative thing about Dan Quayle … he built that pool,” Biden told reporters in 2010. “He’s my favorite vice president.”
And all its residents have fond memories of their time there. “It was a true home. It wasn’t some big glass house like the White House,” Denyer said. “I couldn’t find any vice president to say anything remotely critical.”
“It was a true home. It wasn’t some big glass house like the White House.” Charles Denyer
Author of Number One Observatory Circle