The 1824 Blair House has been the official presidential guesthouse since 1942, when Eleanor Roosevelt got sick of tripping over dignitaries in the White House. A plaque on the front fence commemorates the bodyguard killed here while protecting President Truman from a 1950 assassination attempt by pro-independence militants from Puerto Rico (Truman was living here while the White House was undergoing renovations).
The red-brick building next door (now combined with Blair House) was built by Robert E Lee’s cousin in 1859. This is where Lee declined command of the Union Army when the Civil War erupted.
