WASHINGTON — Real estate circles buzzed Wednesday over reports that President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, have decided to lease a nine-bedroom mansion in one of Washington’s poshest neighborhoods when he leaves office in January.
With a sprawling terrace and a castlelike exterior, the home sits on a quarter-acre lot just down the road from the Naval Observatory, the vice president’s official residence, in the wealthy Kalorama neighborhood near Embassy Row. A 2011 remodel brought the total number of bathrooms to 8 1/2 , along with three fireplaces and an “au pair suite,” spread out over roughly 8,200 square feet, according to real estate data. It features parking for up to 10 cars.
Peg Mancuso, the president of the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors, called the area “clearly one of the best neighborhoods in the Washington metropolitan area.” She said if the reports are true, “He couldn’t have picked a better neighborhood for his family.”
“It seemed like the perfect choice,” Manusco said.
The mansion’s owners, President Bill Clinton’s former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart and his wife, live in New York, where he works for the NFL. The White House declined to comment on the possibility of the Obamas renting the property.
