It’s not the White House, but it sure is a good home.
The Washington, DC home of Bill Plante, who served as a CBS News White House correspondent for 4 administrations and entertained storied journalists and the politicians they coated for dozens of dinner events, has listed for $3.5 million.
Plante and his spouse, the Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Robin Smith, introduced collectively elected officers from both sides of the aisle like Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Ronald Reagan’s deputy chief of workers Michael Deaver.
Bill Plante and Robin Smith arriving at the White House for a state dinner on Oct. 18, 2016. Greg Mathieson Sr/Shutterstock
Plante was a longtime staple at the Tiffany community. CBS via Getty Images
The good-looking exterior of the Georgetown residence. Townsend Visuals
They mingled with journalists like Sam Donaldson, Andrea Mitchell and Lesley Stahl at the couple’s Georgetown residence, a uncommon indifferent home in the neighborhood of historic rowhouses.
“We’d have the whole ’60 Minutes’ crowd when they were in town,” Smith said.
Plante, who also anchored “CBS Sunday Night News” for seven years, died in 2022 at age 84. Smith is relocating from a block in which journalist Bob Woodward lives across the avenue and the Atlantic humor author Alexandra Petri lives a few doorways down.
Plante and Smith purchased the three-story, four-bedroom, four-bath Italianate-style home, constructed in 1900, at 3034 Q St. NW in 1987 for $435,000.
Smith recollects that Plante was reluctant to depart their close by Georgetown condominium, but was bought when he found the small south-facing garden, which they renovated and professionally landscaped, including a flagstone patio and a water characteristic.
“For me, adding that terrace in the back was a life changer because it’s like a whole other room,” said Smith, who based the nonprofit manufacturing company Video/Action and has had movies broadcast on PBS, including a documentary on civil rights activist and congressman John Lewis.
Large exposures enable daylight to circulate all through. Townsend Visuals
The space, constructed for entertaining, saw luminaries come through over the course of years. Townsend Visuals
The residence was also home to a quantity of dinner events. Townsend Visuals
Bay home windows entrance the avenue and jut from the aspect of the 2,900-square-foot tan brick home, bringing in mild that flows from the front room all the manner to the glass-walled two-story addition that Smith and Plante constructed onto the back of the home. The first flooring of it serves as a breakfast room overlooking the terrace, while a primary-bedroom sitting room is above.
A big eating room abuts the front room, which can be separated with pocket doorways. Both rooms have fireplaces.
Beyond that stands a kitchen with Viking and Sub-Zero home equipment, a espresso bar, a wine fridge, twin dishwashers, a professional-grade designer Cheng vent hood and up to date European-style flat-panel wooden cupboards.
The kitchen. Townsend Visuals
Beyond his profession, Plante was identified for an spectacular wine assortment. Townsend Visuals
“We were entertaining at a time where you could bring Republicans and Democrats to the table at the same time,” Smith said. “And because my husband’s job was to cover the White House, beginning with the Reagan administration in the ’80s all the way through the Obama administration, we had a lot of different administrations, a lot of different people who were just really fun to be able to sit down with informally.”
Compass real estate agent Tricia Messerschmitt was a visitor at some of the dinners and remembers that 20 people could be seated in the eating room.
Those events were lubricated with wine from a climate-controlled wine cellar with room for 1,200 bottles. Plante, dubbed the “sommelier to the White house press corps,” was identified for having one of Washington’s best wine collections. The totally completed walk-out basement also accommodates a bed room, a rest room, a rec room, laundry and storage.
Stylish design touches lengthen into every nook of the itemizing. Townsend Visuals
The perks even lengthen outside. Townsend Visuals
Upstairs, the major suite options a full wall of home windows in the sitting room, along with a rest room with rose-toned marble and a soaking tub. Two other bedrooms, one with a bay window, and another rest room spherical out this flooring. Above that is a partial stand-up attic with porthole home windows.
In addition to its well-known neighbors, the home is next door to a brick church with giant stained glass home windows that was constructed in 1907. It initially housed a Methodist church, but since 1960 has been home to the Church of Two Worlds, which payments itself as a “beacon for spiritualism in the nation’s capital.” It makes use of mediums to strive to contact the deceased as nicely as healers for parishioners. A flyer on the door announces “psychic Sundays” once a month.
“They’re a pretty good, quiet neighbor,” said Smith.
Back next door, Messerschmitt notes the home bridges several kinds of its own. She notes, “I consider the house to be very comfortable. It’s nice, but not too fancy. It’s modern, but not too sleek. It’s got a lot that appeals.”
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