WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to spend close to $1 million gutting the first floor of her Washington house and adding a new room and pool house.
The New York Post reports the renovation and expansion of the house, which was already valued at more than $4 million, appears to be aimed at turning it into a better place for entertaining major donors and holding lucrative fundraisers. The New York Democrat and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, also own a house in Chappaqua, a Westchester County suburb of New York.
"A lot of this is social one-gunmanship," Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist told the Post. "That's how you get money. To have the home be a multimillion-dollar mansion guarantees that the RSVPs will pour in."
Permit applications show that Clinton is adding a 1,000-square-foot room to the ground floor with a terrace as well as the pool house. The first floor is also being gutted and redone.
The house, next to the official vice presidential residence at the Naval Observatory, already has 6,260 square feet of space.
