Thomas DePasquale is the Vice President’s next door neighbor; he lives in a 100-year-old Spanish revival mansion just up Massachusetts Avenue from the US Naval Observatory’s main gate. The house is known for its signage. Currently, DePasquale’s lawn sports three enormous vinyl banners showing support for Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and Tim Kaine.
“Living by the Vice President, there are occasional hassles,” DePasquale told me recently when I dropped by to ask about his neighbor. The motorcade is the biggest—it blocks traffic outside the house and apparently kills cell service whenever it passes by. Motorcades “tend to ruin the internet in general,” said DePasquale’s teenaged son, Luke. “During Covid, I got kicked out of a fair couple of Zooms for school.”
Luke also mentioned “the trumpets” as an oddity of his daily life. Each morning, right at eight, the National Anthem blares from the Naval Observatory. (“It’ll wake you up,” he said.) Then, around sunset, a “not insanely loud, but noticeable” bugle call emanates from up the hill. Another idiosyncrasy, he said, is that “ordering pizza is impossible because they mess up the location.” A street-numbering quirk means that the family’s address appears to be inside Observatory Circle. Inevitably, the pizza guy ends up stopped by Secret Service at the USNO gates.
DePasquale, his husband, and their two children have lived in the house for seven years, and it generally feels quite safe. “When anything goes wrong—like, if a car hits a tree—they respond hugely,” DePasquale said. Recently, when his nephew had a medical emergency, dispatch “sent all the equipment in the world because they thought it was inside the Observatory”—that something might be wrong with the Veep.
But right after January 6th, DePasquale’s block suddenly felt a little dicey. A robust security perimeter appeared around the Observatory, designed to protect Mike Pence, whom Capitol rioters had threatened to hang. DePasquale was most struck by the aircraft. “The only time helicopters have ever come near here was those days,” he told me. “I think they wanted an exit that was not by car.” It frightened him. “Civil wars start that way—the vice president is being defended against the president’s followers.”
For the most part, though, the family sees their address not as a liability, but as an opportunity. Some of the most powerful people in the world come through the Naval Observatory, which means they pass by DePasquale’s lawn. “To me, it’s a way I can get a message out,” Luke explained. “Instead of just posting something on Instagram, we can put out signs.”
This began just after the 2016 election. “I’m not a fan of Trump; I can’t come up with a single adjective for him that would be positive,” DePasquale said. “So I bought a 30-foot inflatable baby Trump doll off Amazon right after he won.” Most people apparently loved it—folks would stop their cars to take pictures—though once, DePasquale said, “an older guy hopped out of his car with a penknife and said ‘that thing’s coming down.’ I said, ‘Okay, well, that’s your windshield, right?’ Then he hopped in his car and drove away. That was the entire conversation.”
During the Trump presidency, the family had a raft of normal lawn signs (“In this house, we believe,” “Thank you Dr. Fauci,” “Hate has no home here”) and also tried a few humorous ones (“Not voting is the #1 cause of unwanted presidencies”). “Those weren’t my proudest moment,” DePasquale said of the negative signs. “Now, I put a positive message out.”
After the 2020 election, when Kamala Harris won the vice presidency, DePasquale had a gigantic vinyl banner printed welcoming her to the neighborhood. The sentiment was genuine—his family was delighted by the new administration—but it was also a ploy. “I wanted a cheap introduction to her,” DePasquale said, and it sort of worked; he’s a significant Democratic donor, and Senator Tim Kaine apparently arranged a meeting. DePasquale said Harris thanked him for the sign, and while he invited her over for a welcome to the neighborhood party, her team never followed up.
DePasquale said he doesn’t know Harris as a neighbor; she’s not borrowing sugar, and the big metal fence makes it impossible to knock on her door. “I’m sure, in fairness, it’s just hard,” he said, and stressed that he’s still excited to cast his vote. “She’s had an unbelievable opportunity, and she has played the cards flawlessly. I want a president that can do that.”
This summer, DePasquale’s custom-printed yard signs—which he orders from Etsy—have struggled to keep pace with political developments. First it was “Biden-Harris,” then just “Harris for President,” now “Harris-Walz.” And back in May, when Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies, the inflatable Trump doll made a brief encore appearance with a conviction notice taped to its chest. (“It was a day of celebration,” DePasquale said.)
If Trump is elected in November, DePasquale has no clue what signs he might hang. But if Harris wins, he knows exactly what he’ll do: The family will have a new next-door neighbor in Tim Walz, and they’ll print an enormous banner welcoming him to town. If this happens, he bets they’ll hear from Walz. “As a neighbor, I think he’d be fun.”
