WASHINGTON — An exclusive hotel just yards from the White House will become a temporary home “suite” home for President-elect Barack Obama and his family when they move to the capital this weekend.
With daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, beginning classes Monday at the private Sidwell Friends School, the family needed someplace to stay. They inquired about Blair House, the government official guest residence across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, where presidents-elect sometimes stay before taking the oath of office.
But it’s unavailable, booked solid through Jan. 15, the Bush administration said.
So after Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their daughters wrap up an extended family vacation at a $9 million rental home in his native Hawaii on Thursday, they will trade their house in Chicago for a suite at the storied Hay-Adams hotel.
Opened in 1928, the hotel sits across Lafayette Square from the White House, Obama’s eventual workplace and home. Its name comes from two historical figures who lived on the site: John Hay, the private assistant to President Abraham Lincoln and later secretary of state, and Henry Adams, an author and descendant of Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams.
