The Home: Ormes & the Man

For 18 years Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson, though millionaire ranch owners back in Texas, put up, when in the capital, in a modest, nondescript house on the edge of Rock Creek Park. The house would do for a Texas Senator, but they could entertain only six or eight people at a time, and as their daughters, Lynda Bird (now 17) and Lucy Baines (14), grew up, the need for more room and closet space for all the L.B.J.s in the family became critical. And, as Vice President of the U.S., Lyndon felt the need of something a little more impressive.

Lady Bird Johnson now has something impressive: a twelve-room, French château-style house in Washington’s Spring Valley section. Its previous owner, party-giving Perle Mesta, grandly dubbed it Les Ormes (The Elms), decorated it with all kinds of French furniture, tapestries and bric-a-brac. The Washington word was that Perle had been asking $200,000. The Johnsons paid something closer to $160,000, and Englished its name to The Elms. “Every time somebody calls it a château, I lose 50,000 votes back in Texas,” sighed Lyndon.

The Johnsons bought much of Perle Mesta’s fine furniture, but hired Interior Decorator Genevieve Hendricks to help give The Elms a touch of Texas without spoiling the French look. In the living room, paneled with red-and-gold brocatelle from an old French castle, Lady Bird upholstered everything in jaspe satin (“Fabric-wise, I like this room best”), added a cherry-rose chair ”that seems to say, ‘Come in.’ ” The dining room, which Mrs. Mesta had decorated with French wall coverings of tapestry patterns, was considered perfect as it was. In the foyer are displayed some dazzling mementos of the Johnsons’ recent travels, e.g., a painting of sampans, from South Viet Nam’s Ngo Dinh Diem, a Gandharan head from Pakistan’s President Ayub. From Texas came the Johnson collection of paintings and drawings by their favorite Texas artists—Porfirio Salinas, who specializes in scenes of Texas’ hill country, and Kelly Fearing (birds). Says Lady Bird, who mounted a few of the Texas works near the front door: “I want to see them when ever I open the door, to remind me of where I came from.”

Lady Bird’s major overhaul for the house was aimed at the kitchen, to which she has added a double-oven electric range, two food freezers and a restaurant-size refrigerator. She has plans to make other minor improvements as she goes along. “If there is a clash between function and style, function will win.” says Lady Bird. “I want it to be gracious enough, but it would be out of keeping to expect us to do something really very elegant.” Accordingly, there is a brand-new. $15,000 swimming pool in the backyard. And Mrs. Johnson has her eye on a “funny little crooked apple tree” outside one of her bedroom windows, on which she plans to hang temple bells that she picked up in Bangkok.

Apart from the bells, the pool and the food freezers, the most remarkable Johnson addition to The Elms is neither 18th century nor French. The house has been piped for Muzak in every room.