Days after her unprecedented inauguration, Vice President Kamala Harris has not yet settled into what will become her home during her tenure as vice president. According to one of her aides, Harris will wait to move into her new residence at the Naval Observatory in northwest Washington, D.C.
The home, which is traditionally the residence of vice presidents, needs a number of repairs and household maintenance, so Harris and husband Doug Emhoff holding off on moving in will “allow for repairs to the home that are more easily conducted with the home unoccupied,” the aide told CBS News.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
The aide provided few details on what maintenance the home located at One Observatory Circle would need besides replacing chimney liners. Former Vice President Mike Pence and his family left the home earlier this week headed for Indiana, according to reports.
Harris, who resigned from her Senate seat to take on the vice presidency, has a home in the Washington, D.C., area, but it’s not clear whether that’s where she’ll stay until the work is completed. A timeline was not available on when Harris could move into the vice president residence.
The white, 19th-century abode has housed vice presidents since former Vice President Walter Mondale. The home was built in 1893, and it was originally erected for the superintendent of the USNO, according to a statement from the White House. It would be decades before accumulating costs of housing vice presidents privately influenced the decision to secure a household especially for the vice presidents and their families.
In 1974, Congress agreed to refurbish the house at the Naval Observatory as a home for the vice president. Mondale was the first vice president to move into the home. It has since been home to the families of Vice Presidents George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden and Pence.
