United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently bought a $5.6 million house in Kalorama, according to a source with knowledge of the sale. The transaction went through on February 10, according to property records, a little more than a week after Tillerson was confirmed by the Senate.
Tillerson, a former chief executive of ExxonMobil before being nominated by President Trump, bought the four-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bathroom Colonial Revival home on February 10 from former AOL executive Richard Hanlon and his wife, Pam. Mark McFadden of Washington Fine Properties represented the Hanlons in the sale. It had been reported in January that Tillerson was looking in Kalorama, which also counts among its newest residents former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama and Ivanka Trump and her husband, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner.
Although Tillerson has kept a relatively low profile since taking over as the United States’ top diplomat, Kalorama neighbors have been crowing about the arrival of the tony enclave’s latest high-profile resident. Along with one former President and his family, the current President’s daughter and her family, and the new secretary of state, Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is another new buyer.
Wilbur Ross, the billionaire investor nominated to lead the Commerce Department, lives nearby in a Massachusetts Avenue Heights mansion which he bought from his likely predecessor, Penny Pritzker. Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon tapped for secretary of housing and urban development, opted for the suburbs when he purchased a $1.3 million spread in Vienna.
Tillerson’s house is about an 18-minute walk from the Dupont Circle Safeway supermarket—known to locals as the “Soviet Safeway”—where he was spotted buying groceries in early January.