The painter, prepping to apply a couple of coats of linen white in advance of the new residents moving in? He didn't know. A neighbor? No clue. Even the seller didn't realize who had bought his South Baltimore rowhouse.
The first time Daddy visits, though, any lingering mystery will vanish, right around the time the serious-looking, earpiece-wearing Secret Service agents show up: First daughter Jenna Bush and her by-then husband, Henry Hager, are moving into a two-story, 128-year-old rowhouse in a lively neighborhood south of downtown. (For reasons including the desire not to incur the wrath of those guys with the earpieces, The Sun isn't revealing the address or street.)
The White House, as is its practice when it comes to the Bush family's private doings, wouldn't comment on the kids' new digs. Real estate and property tax documents, though, confirm that Hager bought the house last month for $440,000. He turned over power of attorney to Jenna for the purpose of signing purchasing and financing documents in his name -- including an affidavit that stated this would be Hager's principal residence.
It's unclear when Jenna -- the blonde half of President and Mrs. Bush's 26-year-old twin daughters -- and Hager, a former aide to Karl Rove, will move in. The couple is scheduled to marry at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, on May 10, and Hager, 29, is due to receive an MBA degree at the University of Virginia about a week later. Then there's been talk of a weeks-long honeymoon, in Europe.
But after that, imagine the possibilities of future sightings in the neighborhood: There's Rub, the barbecue restaurant whose menu tips its (cowboy) hat to Ruby's, a beloved restaurant just off the campus of Jenna's alma mater, the University of Texas in Austin; and Ropewalk, the watering hole that serves as something of a Republican oasis in an overwhelmingly Democratic neighborhood and city.
Roger Sandau, a lawyer and insurance broker who had lived in the house for a year before selling it, said neither Hager nor Jenna Bush was at the closing, having signed the necessary documents earlier and leaving the actual settlement to their agent.
"I had no idea that's who bought it," he said. "I heard it was a relocation for Constellation."
It is: Hager reportedly has been hired by the energy conglomerate, which is the parent company of BGE and has its headquarters on Pratt Street -- a longish walk, but not unbearably so, from his new house.
