Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, moved into the vice president’s official residence at Number One Observatory Circle with their three children upon taking office in 2025. They’re expecting their fourth child, a boy, in July.
The 9,150-square-foot historic home features personal touches and luxury features added by vice presidents over the years, including a swimming pool, a running track, and, most recently, a large chicken coop that reflects the mansion’s architectural style. It’s also been home to a few ghost stories.
Here’s a closer look at the vice president’s residence.
The vice president’s official residence is located on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, DC.
Established in 1830, the US Naval Observatory is one of the oldest scientific agencies in the US, where scientists collect astronomical data for accurate navigation, according to the official website of the Commander, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command.
The movements of planets and stars are used to accurately provide positioning, navigation, and timing for the Navy and Department of Defense.
Measuring 9,150 square feet, Number One Observatory Circle contains 33 rooms.
The home features six bedrooms, a dining room, a garden room, a study, and an attic.
The home was built in 1893 for the Naval Observatory’s superintendent and began housing its chief of naval operations in 1923.
Vice presidents used to live in their own homes until Congress devoted funds to refurbishing the home for vice presidential use in 1974, according to the White House.
Number One Observatory Circle became the official vice presidential residence in 1974.
President Gerald Ford’s vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, hosted events at the home but didn’t live there.
In 1977, Vice President Walter Mondale, who served under President Jimmy Carter, became the first vice president to live in the residence full-time.
Mondale’s daughter, Eleanor, once called the Secret Service when she said she saw a ghost in her bedroom.
Eleanor Mondale wrote in a 1998 issue of Swing magazine that the Secret Service was less than pleased when they found out she had reported a ghost sighting, rather than an intruder.
“I was so scared, I fainted,” she wrote, Deseret News reported. “Upon coming to, I phoned the Secret Service Command Post. I whispered that there was a man in my room and hung up. Minutes later, two agents busted into the room, guns drawn. When I told them the ‘man’ was actually a ghost, they requested that I NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!”
Vice presidents can redecorate the home according to their tastes.
Money for maintaining the home, as well as for additions or renovations, comes from private funds or donations to the Vice President’s Residence Foundation, which was founded in 1991.
Dick and Lynne Cheney decorated the residence in neutral colors.
They enlisted interior designer Frank Babb Randolph to help with the transformation.
The Bidens added pops of color throughout the house, such as “Biden blue” walls in the dining room.
Interior designer Victoria Hagan worked with the Bidens to add touches such as green wallpaper to the library and “daffodil yellow” walls in the living room.
The Bidens’ favorite room in the home was the Solarium.
“I love to go in that room and sit on the couch and grade papers or have meetings,” Jill Biden told The Washington Post in 2017. “Often, they put a round table in there and we would have dinner or lunch.”
Vice presidents have also added amenities over the years, such as a jogging track, exercise room, and horseshoe pit.
George H.W. Bush installed a quarter-mile jogging track at the residence, and he liked it so much that he continued running there even after he became president.
The house features a pool added by Dan Quayle.
Biden told reporters in 2010 that “no one can say a negative thing about Dan Quayle” because he added the pool to the vice president’s residence.
“He’s my favorite vice president,” Biden said. “And my granddaughters love it.”
Joe Biden surprised Jill Biden with a tree swing on the grounds of the residence for Valentine’s Day in 2010.
The commemorative plaque reads “Joe loves Jill. Valentine’s Day 2010.”
Jill Biden added the Family Heritage Garden where stones memorialize all the home’s previous occupants and their family members, including pets.
The garden also features a bronze sculpture of the Bidens’ dog Champ, who died at age 13.
When the Pences moved into the residence, Karen Pence installed a beehive to raise awareness of the declining honeybee population.
Karen Pence previously kept bees at the Indiana governor’s residence, unveiling a hive there in 2014. The hive she added to the vice presidential residence in 2017 held 20,000 bees.
“All types of pollinators, such as bees, butterflies, birds, and bats, are critical to providing our nation’s food, fiber, fuel, and medicine,” Pence said at the unveiling.
Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, became the first residents to affix a mezuzah to the door of the home.
In November 2021, the second couple put a white mezuzah — a small scroll of Hebrew text from the Torah in a decorative case — on the right side of the doorway of their residence.
When they affixed the object, which marks the space as sacred and holy, Emhoff’s parents came to the ceremony, Harris told Vanity Fair.
“My mother-in-law, Barbara, is very pleased and proud of her son,” she said.
Harris and Emhoff also planted a pomegranate tree on the grounds to mark the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks in Israel.
“For years to come, this pomegranate tree will stand here, spreading its roots and growing stronger to remind future vice presidents of the United States, their families, and all who pass through these grounds not only of the horror of October 7, but of the strength and endurance of the Jewish people,” Harris said in her speech before planting the tree. “It will remind us all not to abandon the goal of peace, dignity, and security for all, and it will remind us all to always have faith.”
There’s rumored to be a secure bunker underneath the residence.
When loud blasts and construction noises were heard at Number One Observatory Circle in 2002, neighbors complained and received letters that read, “Due to its sensitive nature in support of national security and homeland defense, project-specific information is classified and cannot be released.”
The letter sparked rumors that a secure bunker was being built after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
A spokesperson for the US Navy told the BBC in 2002 that the construction was “an infrastructure and utility upgrade.”
Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift reported in 2009 that Biden revealed the existence of the bunker at an annual Gridiron Club dinner, but Biden’s spokeswoman told Fox News that his comments were not reported accurately.
“What the vice president described in his comments was not — as some press reports have suggested — an underground facility, but rather, an upstairs workspace in the residence, which he understood was frequently used by Vice President Cheney and his aides,” the spokeswoman said. “That workspace was converted into an upstairs guestroom when the Bidens moved into the residence. There was no disclosure of classified information.”
Vice presidents have more freedom of movement at their residence than presidents do in the White House.
Presidents can’t just walk out of the White House whenever they want. At One Observatory Circle, though, vice presidents have more space and privacy to live normal lives.
At a CNN town hall in 2021, Biden likened the White House to a “gilded cage.”
“The vice president’s residence was totally different,” he said. “You’re on 80 acres, overlooking the rest of the city. And you can walk out, and there’s a swimming pool. You can walk off a porch in the summer and jump in a pool, and go into work. You can ride a bicycle around and never leave the property and work out. But the White House is very different.”
Harris occasionally hosted gatherings at the official residence.
Harris welcomed Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar to the residence for a St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in 2023.
In January 2025, JD Vance and Usha Vance moved into the residence with their three young children: Ewan, Vivek, and Mirabel.
The Vances are the first vice presidential family to live at the residence with children since the Gore family in 1993.
They also hosted Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin and his wife, Mary O’Shea, for a St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in 2026.
In June 2026, the Vances added a chicken coop to the property.
Designed by Carolina Coops, the structure was designed to match the architecture of the Naval Observatory. It was not built with taxpayer funds, a source familiar with the matter told Business Insider.
The chicks will supply the vice president’s residence with fresh eggs. Vance joked during a 2024 campaign trail visit to a grocery store that his young children “actually eat about 14 eggs every single morning.”
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