Somewhere, in some article, in the past few days I read that this house was built new for them. Looking at the real estate information, it seems to me that as you go down the list, you come to "Lot Number:30
Prior Sales Price: $44,000"
and that would indicate to me that that is the price of the lot on which the house was built.
If the house was built new for them in 1999, why in the world were they doing a kitchen remodel (complete with granite countertops) at the time of the Vanity Fair interview?
Also, last night (Thursday) something else occurred to me as I was thinking about this. The twins were born in 2000 and afterwards she developed postpartum depression--duration and severity unknown but she did help establish some kind of counselling service to help other women who have the same problem which seems to indicate to me that what she experienced she considered to be of significance if she would go to all the trouble to devote so much of her time to doing this kind of thing. For the better part of a year after the birth she would have been on maternity leave. During this time she would probably have been receiving a reduced salary. She may have gone back to work shortly before setting up the Niger trip. There has been some speculation that one of the motives for the trip was to help Wilson's business. Yesterday we posted the article by Philip Sherwell from the London Telegraph and focused in on the words "enforced leave" and the fact that Sherwell says it was "unpaid". However further down the article, Sherwell, referring to what Wilson told him says, "He said that since the scandal broke he had been vilified, his reputation tarred and clients discouraged from doing business with him." So the money question is very interesting and mysterious and certainly should be investigated by someone.
I hadn't thought of that. You may be correct that the price was for the lot only. I will say, however, that the Foxhall section of DC is one of the most expensive. I can't imagine you could buy a lot for anything like $44,000. One could go to the public records in DC and find this out. I did find a web site that I can no longer find that contained a newsletter for the Foxhall Road neighborhood that made mention of recent property transfers and the property in question was one of them.