From our nation’s founding until 1977, vice presidents had to find their own place to live. I created a map of where they made their homes, from boarding houses in the shadow of the Capitol building to large estates in nearby Maryland and Virginia.

Stars are buildings that still exist; colors signify the half-century they were occupied. Map by the author.

I found 58 houses and hotels were vice presidents lived. Twenty-five of these homes still remain today, and 17 of them are still used as private homes or hotels.

The map includes at least one residence for every vice president, even Theodore Roosevelt, who lived in DC for five days, and John Tyler, who lived here for just one day. The one exception is William R. King, who was inaugurated in Cuba and died six weeks later without ever coming to Washington. This is not a complete list, as some directories don’t include the information or aren’t easily available, and some vice presidents likely moved mid-session (Aaron Burr did it once) and their new homes might not have been recorded.

The first vice presidents lived in boarding houses

Starting with President John Adams in 1800, presidents lived in the White House, which was then the largest house in the United States. In contrast, Adams’ vice president, Thomas Jefferson, rented a bedroom and parlor in a Capitol Hill boarding house where he lived with 30 other members of Congress, Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, and a handful of their wives. Similar to Jefferson, most of the early vice presidents lived in boarding houses, many near the Capitol.

Later, vice presidents lived in hotels, starting with George M. Dallas in 1845. Others followed suit over the next century until John Nance Garner, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vice president who lived in the Hotel Washington until 1941, became the last. Others rented private homes or lived with wealthy residents. In 1889, William Henry Benjamin Harrison’s vice president Levi P. Morton was the first to own his own home (or possibly Schuyler Colfax 20 years earlier), but by the 1950s personal ownership became the norm.

It wasn’t only the kinds of homes that changed, but also the locations. Until 1839, most vice presidents lived on Capitol Hill. From the 1840s to the 1920s, vice presidents lived almost exclusively within what we now call the Central Business District, except for John C. Calhoun’s time at Dumbarton in Georgetown. In 1919, Thomas Marshall moved outside of the L’Enfant City to stay in the old Wardman Park Hotel, and 20 years later, Garner would be the last VP to live downtown. After World War II, vice presidents moved toward the upper northwest part of DC and into Maryland and Virginia.

Of the 25 remaining vice presidential residences, the oldest one is 1909 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. In the late 18th century, it was home to Vice President Elbridge Gerry, who served under James Madison and gave is the eponym of the term “gerrymandering.” The building was a boarding house at the time, and Gerry lived with the secretaries of the Navy, War, and Treasury. Today, that building is part of the Mexican Embassy.

The Naval Observatory is now the vice president’s permanent home

In 1951, Congress directed the Secret Service to protect the vice president and their family, which would eventually lead to the creation of a permanent vice presidential residence. Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1961, the Secret Service gave vice presidents full-time, in-home protection, which required expensive improvements to their private homes.

In 1966, Congress authorized the creation of an official vice presidential residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory, but postponed construction until after the Vietnam War. For the following eight years, the Secret Service spent $123,000 to safeguard the private homes of Hubert H. Humphrey, $250,000 for Spiro Agnew, and $80,000 for Gerald Ford.

Due to public outrage over the cost of improving Spiro Agnew’s house, Congress took an existing house next to the lot where the vice presidential house would go and made it the “Official Temporary Vice-President’s Residence.” The 33-room mansion, then known as Admiral’s House, had served as the home of the Chief of Naval Operations since 1923. Due to political opposition to the cost of building a permanent home, and concerns from astronomers at the Naval Observatory that a new house would interfere with their work, a new house was never built.

Admiral’s House, now called One Observatory Circle, became the official vice president’s residence in 1975. However, then-Vice President Nelson Rockefeller only used it for entertaining, preferring to stay at his sprawling estate in the Foxhall neighborhood. In 1977, Walter Mondale and his family became the first to move in to the official residence. Since then, six vice presidents have lived there (though ongoing maintenance to the house has delayed the Second Family from moving in on at least three occasions), tying it with the Willard Hotel for housing the most vice presidents.