President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden left Washington on Wednesday for a mid-week trip to their beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, in a rare move for the first couple. It will be Biden’s first visit to the White House during his presidency. The celebration is in honor of the first lady’s 70th birthday, which falls on Thursday, according to her press secretary Michael LaRosa.
The $2.7 million beach house, which the couple bought in 2017, is in an oceanside community, and it is Jill Biden’s favorite of the Bidens’ three homes (including the family home in Wilmington, Delaware, and the White House), according to several people who know her. “Anyone who knows the first lady knows how much she enjoys her time at home in Rehoboth,” confirmed LaRosa.
The house was the fulfillment of a promise Joe Biden made to his wife after stepping down as Vice President under Barack Obama and signing a lucrative multimillion-dollar book deal. Joe Biden told his wife, Jill Biden, that he would buy her a beach house in Rehoboth, which had been a “dream” of hers for many years, according to one of her friends, a place where she could host family and relax. In March 2020, Biden told Vogue magazine, “I wanted it to be the kind of place where you can come in in your wet bathing suit and bare feet and I can just take the broom and brush out the sand. And that’s what this is. Everything’s easy.”
Another source familiar with the itinerary said the trip this week will be “quiet,” and that no special events are planned for Biden’s birthday. On Thursday, extended family members, including daughter Ashley Biden, who lives in Philadelphia, are expected to join the first couple.
Biden’s 70th birthday is a watershed moment in her life. She is now the longest-serving first lady in modern American history. Bess Truman, Nancy Reagan, and Barbara Bush, who were all 67 when their husbands left office, were the next-oldest first ladies in the White House. For the last several decades, the average age of a first lady in the White House has been 50; during their husbands’ administrations, Helen Taft, Grace Coolidge, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosalynn Carter, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, and Melania Trump all celebrated their 50th birthdays.
Biden is an active American senior, despite being technically older than her predecessors, a distinction her husband also shares with his. She attends two to three Barre exercise classes per week and has been a runner for most of her life. Jill Biden, unlike Joe Biden, who enjoys ice cream, is a healthy eater, according to friends.
On Friday, the President and First Lady are expected to return to the White House and spend the weekend there.
