Homes of U.S. presidents

By Susan Galleymore, Inman News

February 16, 2012

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Forty-four men have served a total of 56 terms in the Oval Office. In this Presidential election year, let's take a look at places where this nation's top commanders in chief over the past 40 years have called home.
Some have been raised in modest homes while others grew up "with a silver spoon in their mouth" - at least according to one rival politician.
Slideshow: Homes of U.S. Presidents Here are homes where five future modern Presidents once flourished:
Barack Obama
Location: Chicago

The Obamas bought their Kenwood neighborhood home in 2005. Photo: ChicagoGeek / Flickr

The Obamas purchased a 6,199-square-foot, two-story, single-family home in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood, in June 2005 for $1.65 million -- $300,000 less than the asking price.
At about the same time, businessman and Obama campaign supporter Antoin "Tony" Rezko and his wife, Rita, purchased a vacant lot adjoining Obama's property for $625,000, the full price. Obama purchased a portion of that lot six months later from Rezko for $104,500.
(After a federal investigation culminated in Rezko's conviction for corruption, Obama explained to the Chicago Sun Times, "I regret that while I tried to pay close attention to the specific requirements of ethical conduct, I misgauged the appearance presented by my purchase of the additional land from Mr. Rezko.")
The Obamas' Greenwood Avenue home is currently estimated to be worth $1.19 million.

George Walker Bush
Location: Outside Crawford, Texas

The Bushes intend to grow old at their Prarie Chapel Ranch house. Photo: Grant Hammond

Scion of the Bush dynasty, former President George W. Bush was born in Connecticut, although he made Texas his home state. He married schoolteacher Laura Welch shortly after he purchased a modest 2,406-square-foot home in Midland, Texas, in 1977.
In 2000, a year before he took office as the nation's 43rd president, Bush bought a 1,500-acre ranch for an estimated $1.3 million after a profit of $14.3 million in the sale of the Texas Rangers. Laura Bush said of Prairie Chapel Ranch, outside of Crawford, Texas (also dubbed the "Western White House"), "I want George and I to be able to grow old here."
The 4,000-square-foot, environmentally sustainable Prairie Chapel Ranch house, designed by architect David Heymann, is constructed from local limestone, sports tin roofing, and uses geothermal pumps and underground cisterns to collect rainwater.

William Jefferson Clinton
Location: Hope, Arkansas

Bill Clinton birthplace home on Hervey St. in Hope, Ark. Photo: J. Williams via Wikimedia Commons.

President Bill Clinton never owned a house before he became president, though his birthplace and childhood home is celebrated by the Clinton Birthplace Foundation, which preserves his childhood history in Hope, Ark. Hope's "Clinton Loop" is an auto tour route marked with signage.
After Clinton and wife Hillary departed the White House, the couple moved into their Chappaqua home at 15 Old House Lane before Hillary ran for a New York senate seat. With an estimated value of $1.3 million, the five-bedroom Dutch Colonial offers 1 acre and a front door that is 60 feet from a public road.
The Clintons have been house hunting in the same county, Westchester, and in 2010 were reportedly considering this home in Bedford Hills: the 20-acre Clover Hill Farm. The home has 7,000 square feet of space, including five bedrooms, a fireplace in the master bedroom, a wood-paneled library, stone patios, a wine cellar, his and her bathrooms and dressing rooms (hers is two stories), a heated pool and pool house, two guesthouses, an artist studio, stables, pastures, a dressage ring, and a koi pond.

George Herbert Walker Bush
Location: Kennebunkport, Maine

The Bush family mansion in Maine was built in 1903. Photo: aresauburn™ / Flickr

The Bush family compound is situated on Walker's Point (originally Point Vesuvius) in the town of Kennebunkport on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Maine. The summer home of George H. W. Bush, the 41st U.S. president, the estate was purchased in the late 19th century by St. Louis banker George H. Walker, and the mansion was built in 1903.
Passed to Dorothy Walker Bush and her husband Prescott Bush, the estate has been a Bush family retreat for more than a century.

Ronald Reagan
Location: Outside Santa Barbara, California

Rancho del Cielo has been preserved as it was when Reagan owned it. Photo: Rancho del Cielo

As his second term as California governor was coming to an end, Reagan purchased "Tip Top Ranch" on Nov. 13, 1974, for about $527,000 (which equates to about $2.35 million in today's dollars).
Rechristened "Rancho del Cielo" (Spanish for "Ranch in the Heavens"), this was the Reagans' home for nearly 25 years -- and the "Western White House" for eight years. Here, the Reagans hosted Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 1983, Mikhail Gorbachev in 1992, and by that time Lady Margaret Thatcher in 1993.
After leaving the presidency in 1989, the Reagans moved to their Bel Air home and kept the ranch as a retreat. The Young America's Foundation purchased Rancho del Cielo in 1998 to preserve it as it was when President Reagan owned it. Reagan died June 5, 2004.

Click here to see all of the homes of U.S. presidents.


Source(http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/homes-of-us-presidents.html)