Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States, served two very different terms of office. Elected as a reformer in 1913, he enacted many reforms that are still part of the American political system. Reelected in 1916, in part on his “He Kept Us Out of War” slogan, Wilson saw World War I take over his second term. In 1917, he reluctantly called the nation to join in the struggle to “make the world safe for democracy” and directed the American support essential to Allied victory. He played a central role in creating the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. When Wilson returned from Versailles, however, he discovered that the country’s mood had changed. Support for the League of Nations, which Wilson saw as an essential part of the peace treaty, had sharply declined. During an intense and exhausting speaking tour, he suffered a debilitating stroke, and the League went down to defeat. A broken man, he retired at the end of his term to spend the last three years of his life at what is now the Woodrow Wilson House. His second wife, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, selected the handsome Georgian mansion near Embassy Row in Washington, DC as an appropriate residence for a former president. The Wilsons moved into their new home on March 4, 1921, the day of Warren G. Harding’s inauguration. A few hundred people gathered outside to honor the ex-President, and they gathered again on Armistice Day and Wilson's birthday every year until his death in 1924.

The year after the death of his first wife in 1914, Wilson married widow, Edith Bolling Galt. Some historians call her "the first female president of the United States" for the role she played in hiding the effects of her husband’s disabling illness from the public during his last year and a half in office. She began searching for a permanent residence in Washington in 1920. Delighted with a handsome five-year old Georgian mansion she found at 2340 S Street NW, she informed her husband that it would make an ideal retirement home. On December 14, Wilson surprised his wife by presenting her with the deed. Before moving in, the Wilsons made a number of changes to accommodate Wilson’s condition. They installed an elevator to make it easier for him to move around and created a terrace off the second-floor dining room, so that Wilson could walk outside without having to negotiate steps. They also added a billiard room and enlarged the library to accommodate his 8,000 books. Wilson spent his three remaining years in partial seclusion, cared for by his wife and servants. Except for a daily automobile ride and a weekly visit to the movies, he rarely left home or received guests. On Armistice Day in 1923, he spoke to more than 20,000 well-wishers who came to the house to honor him, still affirming the principles in which he believed. It was his last public appearance. He died three months later in his upstairs bedroom.

Wilson’s widow donated the S Street house and many of its furnishings to the National Trust for Historic Preservation but continued to live in the house until her death in 1961. The Trust opened it to the public in 1963. Today, visitors can see the three-story, red brick neo-Georgian house, as it was when Wilson lived there. The front door opens to a marble-floored entrance hall and stairway, flanked by the kitchen, servants' dining room, and billiard room. The main public spaces, a drawing room facing S Street, library, dining room, and solarium overlooking the garden, are on the second floor. The third floor contains five bedrooms. Original furnishings include portraits, books, autographed photographs of world leaders, commemorative china, and Bolling family furniture. The library holds the leather chair Wilson used at Cabinet meetings and numerous personal effects. The Bible on which he took the oath of office as governor and as president is on display in the drawing room. Radios, silent movies, dresses, and personal items reflect the Wilsons’ day-to-day lives.

Information courtesy of the National Park Service. Images Courtesy of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.