President Biden views himself as a “frustrated architect” and enjoys making even the rental properties he has resided in over the years “look like a home.”
While the interview includes significant chatter about the contents and locations of various filing cabinets and boxes — which makes sense given the subject of the investigation — the transcript also provides surprising information about Biden’s residences over the years, and his clear interest in renovation and decorating. The insights we gleaned from the transcript pertain to the Bidens’ lake house in Wilmington, Del.; Biden’s time in the official vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory; and the McLean, Va., rental house where he lived after his two terms as vice president. (He also owns a home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., though it receives almost no attention in these conversations.)
The U.S. Secret Service has redacted some of the discussion about his homes, especially related to their layouts. That means some of the subjects remain mysterious. For example, this quote about the McLean rental: “The whole [redacted] is a beautiful [redacted] which cost me more than the whole house — literally had it handmade because I made the mistake of renting a place that had a magnificent [redacted].”
Whatever he was talking about, it sounds impressive! Here are eight more insights that survived in the transcript, mostly unredacted.
Biden has a lot of sentimental furniture
Biden acquires and holds onto furniture that plays a part in his personal history. Outgoing lawmakers can buy non-historical furnishings from their Capitol Hill offices, “so I purchased my desk for posterity’s sake,” he said during the interview. The desk, which has locking drawers, is in his formal library in his Wilmington lake house.
But that’s not the only work-linked furniture he has. “The first big case I won, I went out and bought a beautiful desk and credenza,” he said.
Biden also kept his eyes on the furniture when he was moving out of the vice president’s official residence, he told prosecutors. He specifically remembered paying attention to the furniture “because I wanted to make sure they didn’t take anything out of the VP residence that wasn’t mine, you know, that was federal property.”
[Redacted] room is his pride and joy
Biden built the house on the shore of a man-made lake in Wilmington, and there is one particular room there that he adores. It comes up multiple times because it contains filing cabinets. Which room? Well, the Secret Service redacted that part. But here’s what we do know about it.
He claimed that “this room cost one-third of the entirety of my entire home. Swear to God.” Hur seemed to agree, responding, “It looks like it.”
In the context of describing the space, Biden said he “picked out the walnut tree that got cut down” and found the designer of a particular museum library he liked — though specifically how the tree or the designer fit into the room’s design isn’t clear from the transcript. He also handpicked the craftsmen involved in building it.
Biden pointed out “seven different individual pieces of … molding,” before granting: “Anyway, I got a little carried away.”
Biden views himself as a ‘frustrated architect’
On both days of the interview, Oct. 8 and 9, Biden called himself a “frustrated architect.” The Wilmington lake home is oriented “so the sun would always shine,” he said. Considering that prosecutors were going through all of his documents, he told them that “you probably saw all those significant number of house plans that I’ve drawn.” He even has a drafting board for that work, though he conceded that random items get stacked up there, too.
He said that his wife, Jill Biden, tried to persuade him not to run again for the Senate by saying, “Look, you don’t run, I’ll pay for architecture school.”
While he didn’t take her up on the offer, he said that he does continue to tinker with the home. “What I constantly do, what drives everyone crazy with me, I’m constantly making changes to the house,” he said. For example, he would knock a wall down or reorient it. He went on to say that the home is “my baby, my hostage, my, my interest.”
He also discussed the virtues of Victorian homes as part of a conversation about the Naval Observatory, a building in that style, though the Secret Service redacted most of those comments.
His fascination with architecture isn’t entirely new information. A former aide told the Wall Street Journal in 2020 that Biden used to read Architectural Digest on his Amtrak rides to and from D.C.
During the interview, he didn’t hold back on his thoughts about the rooms related to the questioning. When Marc Krickbaum, deputy special counsel, began a line of questioning about particular documents, Biden interrupted him by asking, “That’s kind of a neat room though, isn’t it?”
He wanted his Zoom background to look good
When he was moving out of his McLean rental in 2019, Biden wanted to make sure the best furniture made it to his Delaware home. “I thought it was important to set up the lake house in the final form,” he said, because there was a place in the house where he could conduct television interviews and other virtual appearances. “I needed some of that furniture in Delaware … because we were campaigning out of our basement.”
Secret Service redacted the specific room where much of the campaign operation was taking place. But there are some other nuggets of information about it. There was “thick clear plastic” that could come down to protect from rain and then could be pulled up when it was sunny, along with lighting, cameras and other equipment. Was this some kind of indoor-outdoor room? Seems like it, but we can’t say for sure.
He has too much ‘stuff’
The relatable part: Biden has more stuff than he knows what to do with. “My generic problem was that there was a lot of stuff,” he said. “No, I really mean it. Like, I don’t want it all at my house.” The less relatable part: His clutter included “statues,” and he left it to transition staff at the end of his vice presidency to determine what to keep.
He decided to keep a slew of photos, including those that depict the time he, in his words, “unfortunately, embarrassed the hell out of a leader of Mongolia.” In fact, he said he had so many photos, including on the walls and in piles, “I don't know what to do with them.”
He appears to hold onto years worth of filings and paperwork, too. When prosecutors directed him to one photo, he told them that it appeared to contain personal documents. “For example, there’s so damn many different contractors I’ve used about, you know, who’s, who’s going to fix that, put the roof on that, that pump house that’s outside there,” he said.
Later, upon being directed to explain a different filing cabinet, he said, “I don’t think there’s any rhyme or reason. I mean, they’re all over the board. So my guess is these are just things that I decided not to throw away or as I said, they were just miscellaneous stuff that was lying around and got put in a drawer.”
Biden had to clear out his garage to make room for the Corvette
While garages are often the key place to hold onto said “stuff” in many households, the Bidens’ Wilmington garage became too jam-packed. It stored his paint, tools and golf clubs on one side, and Jill Biden’s crockery, vases and crystal pitchers on the other, along with a workbench. Ultimately, to fit his Corvette inside, he found a storage facility to store his lawn mower and a bunch of garden tools, along with the Corvette’s hardtop, he told prosecutors.
He also had to rearrange a bunch of boxes to make it fit. “I remember moving boxes, literally physically moving them, with help, one side to the other so I could get the Corvette in that garage on the left,” he said.
He invested time and money in his McLean, Va., rental home
Once he was no longer vice president, Biden moved into a rental home in McLean, Va. Hur asked him about his feelings about the space: “On one end of the spectrum you could say, ‘I’m going to furnish this place very, very sparsely. I’m not going to bring much there because I’m not going to be there that long.’ At the other end, you could say, ‘I want to bring pretty much everything I own because this is going to be my primary residence.’” While Biden answered that he fell somewhat in the middle of that spectrum, he also said that, once again, he paid very special attention to the furniture.
While the rental came with some furnishings, he bought additional pieces because “I decided it had to look good, because I was bringing people there that were heads of state, that were national security advisers, that were famous people that I’m trying to get engaged in the Senate.” He also hung up art on the walls “to make it look like a home.” Now, a lot of that furniture is stored at the White House, he said, including in the solarium.
He talked about the rental’s basement, which served as “more of a combination family room, meeting room, television room, you know, staff room. … I’m a frustrated architect, and I wanted to set it up so it looked nice.”
He even considered installing a swimming pool at the rental home
At one point, he perhaps became a bit overzealous about the home. “I was even talking about, do I spend the money if they’d allow me and put in a swimming pool out there kind of thing. Jill’s going, ‘What are you doing, what are you talking about, stop,’” he recalled. “... But it was in the context of making the place look nice and livable and feel like home.”
