Woodrow Wilson House
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Location: | 2340 S St., NW Washington, D.C. |
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Area: | less than one acre |
Built: | 1921 |
Architect: | Wood,Waddy B. |
Architectural style: | Colonial Revival, Georgian Revival |
Governing body: | Private |
NRHP Reference#: | 66000873[1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP: | October 15, 1966 |
Designated NHL: | July 19, 1964[2] |
The Woodrow Wilson House was the residence of the Twenty-Eighth President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson after he left office.[3] It is at 2340 S Street NW on Washington, D.C.'s Embassy Row. On February 3, 1924, Wilson died in an upstairs bedroom.[3] It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.[2][4] The National Trust for Historic Preservation owns the house and operates it as a museum.[3]
President Woodrow Wilson bought the home on Embassy Row in the last months of his second term as President of the United States as a gift to his wife, Edith Bolling Wilson.[3] He presented her the deed in December 1920, although he had never seen the house.[3] The former president and his wife moved into the home on Inauguration Day,[3] which in 1921 was March 4 (not the current date of January 20). Wilson made several modifications to the house, including: a billiard room, "stacks" for his library of over 8,000 books, and a one-story brick garage.[3]
It was from the balcony of the house that Wilson addressed a crowd on November 11, 1923, as his last public appearance.[3] While the Wilsons had few guests, former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau did visit the ailing former president there.[3] After Wilson's death in 1924, Edith Wilson lived there until her death on December 28, 1961. She bequeathed the property and many of its furnishings to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.[3]