Blair House

Strictly speaking, Blair House refers to one of four existing structures that were merged to form a single building. The U.S. State Department generally uses the name Blair House to refer to the entire facility, saying, "Blair House is the building officially known as the President's Guest House." The General Services Administration refers to the entire complex as the "President's Guest House" and uses the name Blair House to denote the historic Blair House portion of the facility. == History ==

Pre-unification Blair House , who was killed defending the building in 1950. Blair House was constructed in 1824; it is the oldest of the four structures that make up the President's Guest House. Francis Blair's son Montgomery Blair, who served as Postmaster General in Abraham Lincoln's administration, succeeded his father as resident of Blair House. At a meeting at Blair House on April 18, 1861, Francis Preston Blair Sr. relayed the previous day's offer by Lincoln to Robert E. Lee to command all the Union Forces in the approaching American Civil War. Later that same year, a conference there decided Admiral David Farragut would command an assault on New Orleans. In 1939, a commemorative marker was placed at Blair House by the United States Department of the Interior, becoming the first building to acquire a federally recognized landmark designation; prior landmarks had been monuments and historic sites other than buildings. It would be formally designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973. Beginning in 1942, the Blair family began leasing the property to the U.S. government for use by visiting dignitaries; the government purchased the property outright the following December. The move was prompted in part by a request from Eleanor Roosevelt, who found the casual familiarity Winston Churchill displayed during his lengthy war-time stays at the White House sometimes an imposition. On one occasion, Churchill tried to enter Franklin Roosevelt's private apartments at 3:00 a.m. to wake the president for a conversation. During most of the presidency of Harry Truman, from November, 1948, to March 27, 1952, Blair House served as the residence of Harry S. Truman and his family while the interior of the White House was being renovated. On November 1, 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempted to assassinate President Truman in Blair House. Peter Parker House and 704 Jackson Place The Peter Parker House located at 700 Jackson Place and an adjacent home at 704 Jackson Place were constructed in 1860. Peter Parker House is so named because it was originally the home of physician Peter Parker. The U.S. government acquired both properties between 1969 and 1970, after having rented them for office space. Peter Parker House previously served as the headquarters of the Civil War Centennial Commission and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and is, like Blair House, a National Historic Landmark. Unification Unification of Blair House and Lee House in 2007 with the Royal Standard of the United Kingdom flying from the flagpole During a renovation in the early 1950s, Blair House and Lee House were joined into a single facility that was informally known as Blair–Lee House. Unification of Blair–Lee House with Jackson Place buildings of South Korea (left) hosts a 2013 meeting with World Bank leaders in the President's Guest House. In the early 1980s, Congress appropriated $9.7 million for the property's further renovation and improvement. Federally appropriated funds were augmented with $5 million in private donations. The Jackson Place properties were internally combined into a single building and then merged with Blair–Lee House by way of a connecting structure occupying the alleyway that had separated them. The renovation and merger of the four properties resulted in their closure from 1982 through 1988. Notable guests Notable guests who have stayed at the President's Guest House or the formerly separate Blair House include Queen Elizabeth II, Nikita Khrushchev, Vyacheslav Molotov, Emperor Akihito, Celal Bayar, Adnan Menderes, Charles de Gaulle, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, François Mitterrand, Vladimir Putin, Boris Yeltsin, Hosni Mubarak, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Nambaryn Enkhbayar, Aung San Suu Kyi, Tony Blair, Narendra Modi, Lee Hsien Loong, Hamid Karzai, Benjamin Netanyahu, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Justin Trudeau, Rishi Sunak, Friedrich Merz, Anthony Albanese, and King Charles III. The President's Guest House has also been made available by the outgoing president of the United States to the president-elect for the five days prior to the presidential inauguration. In 1992, President-elect Bill Clinton chose to stay at the Hay–Adams Hotel instead of the guest house and, in 2009, a request by President-elect Barack Obama to take up residence at the President's Guest House two weeks early was rejected because of its prior commitment to international dignitaries, include former Australian prime minister John Howard. During the state funeral of a former president of the United States, the former president's family customarily resides in the guest house for the duration of the observances. At the beginning of her tenure as vice president, Kamala Harris and her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, lived at Blair House while repairs were made to Number One Observatory Circle, the vice president's residence. They moved from Blair House to Number One Observatory in early April 2021. == Layout ==

Exterior spaces The President's Guest House is located at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Jackson Place. Its southern side faces the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, while its eastern side faces Lafayette Square. To its western side along Pennsylvania Avenue, it is adjacent to the Renwick Gallery. Its northern side along Jackson Place abuts Trowbridge House, a separate presidential residence. Immediately behind the gardens of the President's Guest House is the New Executive Office Building. Interior spaces The residence consists of 119 rooms, including 14 bedrooms and 35 bathrooms. At , the President's Guest House is—by floor area—larger than the White House. Notable interior spaces in the Blair–Lee wing The Dillon Drawing Room, which was originally known as the Lee Drawing Room, was renamed in honor of former U.S. secretary of the treasury C. Douglas Dillon, who donated its unique wallpaper, a Chinese print from 1770. Dillon's wife Phyllis purchased the wallpaper on the recommendation of interior designer Eleanor Brown in 1964. The wallpaper was removed and refurbished between 1982 and 1988. The room is furnished with 18th-century English pieces, along with Chinese vases from the Ming and Qing (Kangxi reign) dynasties. It is furnished with 18th-century English antiques, which were valued at more than $1 million in 1987. The small library in the Blair House wing is stocked with approximately 1,500 books. Guests staying at the house traditionally present a book to deposit in the library. A portrait of Francis Blair hangs over the library's fireplace mantle. Notable interior spaces in the Jackson Place wing hosts a working lunch for French president François Hollande in the Treaty Room in 2012. The centerpiece of the Treaty Room in the former Peter Parker House is a 22-seat mahogany table that sits on an 1890 Sarouk rug. A photographic portrait of Empress Dowager Cixi that was presented as a diplomatic gift to the United States by Qing Dynasty China in 1905 hangs in the room. The Lee Dining Room is used for formal banquets. It is lit by an 1825 Irish crystal chandelier. One hundred place settings of fine china and 150 place settings of sterling silver flatware were acquired from Tiffany & Co. in 1988 for use in the dining room. == Management ==

Administration and staff The President's Guest House is owned by the U.S. government and is managed by the office of the chief of protocol of the United States in cooperation with the Diplomatic Security Service, the Department of State's Bureau of Administration, and the Department of State's Office of Fine Arts. The house is operated by full-time staff who are non-residential but customarily live-in during periods of occupancy by a visiting dignitary. In 2001, the staff included a general manager, an assistant general manager, two butlers, a doorman, four housekeepers, two chefs, a launderer, a curator, and several maintenance workers. Security for the facility is provided by the United States Secret Service during periods of occupancy by foreign heads of state and chiefs of government. During visits by other guests such as foreign ministers, the Diplomatic Security Service assumes the leading role. Protocol When a visiting foreign dignitary is in residence at the President's Guest House, the dignitary's official standard is displayed on the building's flagpole. In cases where dignitaries have no official standards, the dignitary's national flag is displayed instead. == See also ==