JD Vance, wife Usha and their three children are packing up to move into their new home – a 9,000-square-foot house on the 200-acre Naval Observatory with a tree swing and swimming pool.
A swimming pool that Joe Biden is obsessed with. And he liked to use it for skinny dipping when he lived there.
Joe and Jill Biden spent eight years at One Naval Observatory when he was vice president under Barack Obama.
And even as president he still talks about the place, including the private heated pool.
“You’re on 80 acres, overlooking the rest of the city, and you can walk outside, there’s a pool, you can walk off the porch in the summer and jump in the pool and go to work,” Biden said at a rally. CNN town hall during the first year of his presidency.
‘You can cycle around and never leave the building. You can train, but the White House is very different,” he noted.
And Biden reportedly jumped into that pool naked, Secret Service agents told author Ron Kessler for his 2014 book about the agency.
“Agents say Biden, whether at the vice president’s residence or his home in Delaware, has a habit of swimming naked in his pool,” Kessler wrote in his book: The first family detail: Secret Service agents reveal the hidden lives of the presidents.
“Female Secret Service agents find that offensive,” he noted.
JD and Usha Vance (above) will move into the vice president’s home in January
The Vice President’s home, known as One Naval Observatory, has a private heated pool
The White House also has a swimming pool, but that’s about it behind the Oval Office patio, meaning it would be nearly impossible for Biden to dive naked without baring everything in front of the West Wing staff.
Biden even told his successor Mike Pence and his family to enjoy the vice presidential pool, calling it one of his favorite perks.
Karen and Mike Pence often used it as part of their workout routine.
“It’s amazing,” Karen Pence told Washington Life magazine in 2017 when she was second lady. “That’s what Joe Biden said to us as he got into the limo and left the Capitol on Inauguration Day — he said, ‘You’re going to love the pool.’
Biden said as vice president that his favorite vice president was Dan Quayle, who installed the swimming pool at the residence.
“No one can say anything negative about Dan Quayle,” he told reporters in 2010, adding that Quayle “built that pool.”
“He is my favorite vice president,” Biden said. “And my granddaughters love it.”
Biden even called it “the Dan Quayle pool.”
Naomi, Finnegan and Maisey – Hunter Biden’s daughters – lived with their parents in Washington DC when Joe Biden was president. They regularly visited their grandparents at the Naval Observatory.
As vice president, Joe BIden hosted pool parties using a super soaker
The 9,000-square-foot vice presidential residence has six bedrooms
As vice president, Biden bragged about his living conditions: “I voted for public housing all these years. I didn’t know it would be this good.’
The vice presidential residence is technically public property.
It is located at the United States Naval Observatory, a naval base that is one of the oldest scientific research areas in the country. It remains the country’s main facility for astronomical and temporal data and is a center for navigation information.
Just two miles from the White House, Vance will have to make a short trip, especially since he will be traveling in a motorcade.
There is also plenty of room for him, his three children Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel and the family dog Atlas.
The Queen Anne-style home is 9,150 square feet and has 33 rooms, seven fireplaces, a library and a solarium.
It has six bedrooms and a wrap-around veranda. There is also extensive grounds with plenty of room for Atlas to run and the children to play.
And it’s completely private. Unlike the White House, there are no public tours of the Vice Presidential Residence, although the public can sign up for tours of the observatory itself to see the giant telescope and science library.
The house was built in 1893 for the Superintendent of the Naval Observatory. The three-story house cost about $20,000 to build.
It began housing the chief of naval operations in 1923 and became the vice presidential residence in the 1970s. Vice President Walter Mondale, who served under President Jimmy Carter, became the first vice president to live there full-time.
JD Vance and Usha with Evan, Vivek and Mirabel
Dick Cheney, as Vice President, dressed up his Labrador retrievers Jackson (left as Darth Vader) and Dave (right as Superman) for Halloween
Al Gore, as vice president, and his wife Tipper held major Halloween events where they dressed in costume – above the couple in 1998 dressed as mummies
Many vice presidents have hosted receptions there as part of their official duties.
The Pences and the Bidens each hosted parties for military families. The Bidens held summer barbecues for supporters and press, with Joe Biden running around with a super soaker.
Al and Tipper Gore were famous for their Halloween events, which Dick and Lynne Cheney continued.
The vice presidents and spouses who lived there added their personal touches.
Joe Biden surprised Jill with a tree swing for Valentine’s Day in 2010. The plaque on the tree reads ‘Joe loves Jill. Valentine’s Day 2010.’
Karen Pence installed a beehive.
Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, added a white mezuzah — a small scroll of Hebrew text from the Torah in a decorative box — to the right side of the doorway of their home.
The Vance family will move into the residence on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2025.