Blair House, the guest home of US presidents, is hosting Trump

Donald Trump, who returned to Washington the weekend before his inauguration, is staying at the historic Blair House residence before moving back to the White House on Monday.

The austere three-story facade is where select foreign visitors have been lavishly accommodated and where an American president escaped an assassination attempt.

Charles de Gaulle, the late Queen Elizabeth II and the Emperor of Japan are among the guests who have stayed in the venerable brick building opposite the White House, in the heart of the federal capital.

Blair House actually consists of four contiguous buildings that form a 70,000-square-foot (6,500 square meter) complex—larger than the White House itself—including 119 lavishly decorated rooms dedicated to welcoming foreign leaders or providing a venue for high-stakes diplomatic talks . .

In the back, a quiet garden with a fountain, park benches and ivy-covered walls allows visitors to enjoy fresh air far from the tourists thronging Pennsylvania Avenue.

The president’s guest house, as it is often described, has been the scene of marathon negotiating sessions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and meetings between G7 finance ministers.

It also hosted a colorful visit in the 1990s by heavy-drinking Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who, according to Bill Clinton, was seen one day in 1995 hailing a taxi from the front in his underwear and a day later was mistaken for a drunk intruder wanders into the basement of the building.

In 1998, British Prime Minister Tony Blair played on the similarity in names and acknowledged that he felt “somewhat at home” when he lived in Blair House.

– Guns and cigar smoke –

In addition to welcoming foreign dignitaries, Blair House is where a US president traditionally spends the last few days before his inauguration.

That sparked a minor fight in 2009. Democratic President-elect Barack Obama arrived from Chicago with his family and hoped to move into Blair House early as he prepared for the huge celebration surrounding his historic inauguration on January 20 .

But the Republican administration of George W. Bush said he could not move in until the 15th, giving the excuse that a former Australian prime minister, in town to accept an award, was still there – an excuse that met skepticism from some commentators.

Despite a lack of extensive security around Blair House at the time, President Harry Truman and his family spent years there while the White House underwent a major renovation.

The minimal protective layer made it possible on November 1, 1950, for two armed Puerto Rican independence activists to break in in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Truman. An assailant and a policeman were killed.

Inadequate security was also blamed when, in September 2000, an intruder managed to reach the room where the Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, was staying. Vajpayee was not present at that time.

Built in 1824, the Blair House was soon purchased by Francis Preston Blair, editor-in-chief of the Washington Globe newspaper and a close adviser to President Andrew Jackson, who used the building as a meeting place of sorts for the city’s elite.

In 1942, the US government purchased Blair House at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His patience had been tested by White House guest Winston Churchill, who would fill the mansion’s hallways with acrid cigar smoke and once tried to wake FDR at three in the morning for a chat.

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