The President Woodrow Wilson House — Attraction in Washington

I visited the house for free the 1st weekend of June during the Dupont-Kalorama Museums Consortium among the 5 museums.

Off the beaten path, Woodrow Wilson's house is next-door to all the noisy renovations of Jeff Bezo's multi-million dollar home (former Textile Museum). Nice to still have a piece of history preserved!

The Georgian style house is beautiful and cozy with 3 floors and a nice backyard. Aside from the rugs, all the furniture, paintings, decor, and artifacts are original to the house as Woodrow Wilson spent his last few years here after he left the White House.

Sadly due to the heavy foot traffic on the Consortium weekend, there isn't a tour offered. Would have been helpful to have labels on the artifacts and history boards detailing each room. There were only a couple of docents in the house disseminating information upon request. A guided tour would be quite useful.

My favorite parts of the house and fun facts: Wilson paid lavishly $150K for the house, which was double its worth back in 1921 due to his interest and notoriety. He funded the house by using all his Noble Peace Prize of $50K and with the help of his buddies chipping in. After Wilson passed away in 1924, his wife Edith, lived in the house for 4 decades and donated the house upon her death to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, turning it into a museum as it stands today. The Drawing Room on the 2nd floor is the most beautiful room with ornate decor - portrait of Woodrow Wilson, impressive floor to ceiling bookcase, plush sofa and chairs, crown moldings, and a marble fireplace. Don't miss on Wilson's Luggage Trunks tucked on the 3rd floor. Wilson used the dumb waiter as an elevator to transport his luggage trunks to the top floor as his health was deteriorating. Take a peek at the ornate designs on the fancy trunks! Get a glimpse of Wilson's spacious and ornate Bedroom and his wife's beautiful coat collection on the top floor! It was customary back then for spouses to have separate bedrooms as Edith Wilson slept in an adjacent bedroom (not open for public viewing).

The Woodrow Wilson house takes about a 1/2 hour for a quick walk-through and is much smaller than the Anderson home, Hillwood Estate, and Heurich house. The guided tour takes an hour or so and will be...

Entering my 2nd decade as a DC tour guide, I have visited the Woodrow Wilson House many times, but have been reticent to write a review for fear of revealing my Go To 'hidden gem'! Guests rarely know of its existence and always come away in amazement at the meticulous preservation of Wilson's last home and also leave with a deeper understanding and appreciation of the 28th President and (in my opinion) his grossly underrated 1st Lady, Edith! The house is an absolute treasure trove and time capsule of the 1st quarter of the 20th Century and has remained such because Mrs. Wilson lived there, changing very little, until her death in 1961, oddly enough on what would have been Wilson's 105th birthday.

My most recent visit to the Woodrow Wilson House was to attend a lecture, featuring the famed scholar of international relations, Dr. Mary Habeck. Dr. Habeck offered incredible insight into the current crisis between Ukraine and the soon-to-be re-Soviet Union. Listening to such a smart, concise explanation of the long history of this conflict (dating back almost 1000 years) was extraordinary enough, but to witness/ participate in this breakdown of such a momentous current event - in the drawing room of a Nobel Peace Prize winner - was borderline surreal!

The Woodrow Wilson House receives zero government money and is part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and does not shy away from Wilson's more controversial aspects. Other historic venues should take notes! Whether a history buff visiting Washington, DC or a local interested in current events through the prism of our past, put the Woodrow Wilson House on your list of things to do - I'm pretty sure they wouldn't mind if you made a donation, either! There it is: the cat is officially...

My experience is not good over here, they don’t allow you bring backpack during the tour, you have to lock them in the safe box, ironically the box is stuck so I can’t lock it by myself (the staff come to help). Even Smithsonian’s museum allow visitor hold their backpack, I don’t why a small historical house not allow that. The house itself is very good and full of different staffs, but the docent is awful, he’s out of breath and made people hard to hear his instruction, and his body condition made me worry about if he have the ability to do this one hour tour. He talked a lot during the tour, that cause we finish the tour 10 minutes late, only reason for that is he doesn’t know how to choose the best part to tell visitors. Highly recommend the house hire some professional docent instead of retired person. The docent also not allow people randomly walk to different rooms in one floor, and every people need to crowded into a very small and hot room. The AC in every room is too weak, make everyone sweeting during the tour. I visited a lot of historical houses before, never have such experience like in the Woodrow Wilson House. If you guys really want to attract more people to come, you may need to think about how to improve everything...