TV crew filming outside the house that President Barack Obama pretente rent when leaving the White House, in the Kalorama district of Washington
President Barack Obama and his family plan to move to a mansion in the elegant neighborhood of Kalorama, Washington, just 3.2 km from the White House when he leaves office in January, according privy to his plans people.
Obama, who said his family will be in the US capital until his daughter Sasha complete high school, in 2018, will rent a house of 760 m² and nine quarters, according to these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal his plans.
Valued at about $ 6 million, according to various real estate sites, with a monthly rent estimated at $ 22,000 (US $ 80,000) by Zillow, the house is owned by Joe Lockhart, a former press secretary and advisor senior Bill Clinton.
Lockhart was until this year the managing director of a communications office and political consulting firm that he founded, the Glover Park Group, but moved to Manhattan to be deputy chief executive of the National Football League communications.
Lockhart and his wife, Giovanna Gray Lockhart, a magazine publisher "Glamour", declined to comment, referring questions to the White House. Jennifer Friedman, the vice-secretary of the White House press also declined to comment on the plans of the president, first reported on Wednesday (25) by Politico.
The measure will put Obama in one of the richest areas of Washington in a closed environment that gives the Rock Creek Park, home to diplomats, and is a focal point of the capital's party circuit.
The house itself is luxurious: photos posted by Washington Fine Properties, who sold it in 2014, show spacious rooms with hardwood floors, white marble counters, double master bathrooms and a terrace with formal gardens.
It also has a "suite au pair" which could serve to Marian Robinson, Michelle Obama's mother, who lived with the family in the White House.
The neighborhood already has a presence of considerable security because of its proximity to the stretch of Massachusetts Avenue known as Ala Embassies.
Obama will live a block from the Embassy of Oman and the EU ambassador in the US, and around the corner of Gérard Araud, the French ambassador known for frequent parties at his mansion in Tudor style.
"It's a very quiet neighborhood, and that's why we all love here," said Tony Podesta, a well-connected Democratic lobbyist and brother of John D. Podesta, the director of the Clinton campaign.
Podesta, who lives two houses of Obama rent, usually invite the neighbors to eat pizza in the backyard, which has a furnace itself. Several times a day, a row of parked taxis drags down the street, with its occupants attracted to the Islamic Center in the same block, for Muslim prayers.
When the news of Obama's housing plans were announced on Wednesday, journalists and photographers rushed to the scene. "My home was a little crazy," Podesta said.
Obama still have a home in Chicago, but the president said in March that his family would be in Washington until Sasha, who attends the school Sidwell Friends, is formed in high school. Obama said this month that his oldest daughter, Malia, which will be formed in Sidwell next month, will take a year off before enrolling at Harvard.
The future home of Obama has a rich history. It was built in 1928 by F. Moran McConihe, a contractor who had an important role in the expansion of Kalorama and served in the General Services Administration under President Dwight Eisenhower.
It was purchased by Captain Charles Hamilton Maddox, a veteran of two world wars in 1912 designed and tested in flight, the first radio equipment used successfully in naval aircraft. His daughter, Muriel Maddox, worked with Marlon Brando in "indomitable spirits" and wrote several novels.
The neighborhood has long has important politicians like Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Warren G. Harding, Herbert Hoover and Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Last year, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sold the house in Kalorama where he lived during the Bush administration.
Residents describe the neighborhood as a residential calm oasis in the middle of a bustling city.
"You can reach almost anywhere in Washington in 15 minutes, but the weekend is like being in the field," said Bart Gordon, a Democrat former congressman from Tennessee who is now at the law firm K & L Gates and soon Obama will be door neighbor.
"He will be welcome to the neighborhood. I just hope it's not too noisy."
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