Just two blocks from the White House and within walking distance to everything the nation's capital has to offer, it's easy to see why The Willard InterContinental in Washington DC is known as the "Residence of Presidents" and has remained an anchor in a town that's undergone countless transformations over the hotel's 200-year existence.

In 1862, National Hawthorne wrote, "The Willard may be much more justly called the center of Washington and the Union than either the Capitol, the White House, or the State Department.” Welcoming its first presidential patron, Martin Van Buren, followed by Franklin Pierce in 1853, and then Abraham Lincoln's inauguration in 1861, where he took residence in the days leading up to his presidency, the hotel has welcomed nearly every U.S. president since.

Read more in Tripatini contributor Steve Mirsky's post The Willard Hotel's Rich Washington DC Heritage.

AgnosticPreachersKid