Photo by Clay Blackmore

Bonnie McElveen-Hunter and her sister Tweed transform a Georgetown house into an elegant stage for bipartisan networking

By Deborah K. Dietsch

Photography by Clay Blackmore

The red door swings open and Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, chairwoman of the American Red Cross, graciously offers a tour of her house on O Street NW in Georgeown. “How many houses have a foyer big enough for an entire party?” McElveen-Hunter asks rhetorically, standing under the chandelier in the airy entrance hall. “This is where everybody congregates because they can see all the rooms from here.”

Since purchasing the 1927 home four years ago from man-about-town Robert Corby, she has turned it into an elegant setting for entertaining Washingtonians of nearly every stripe – philanthropists, business leaders, Bush loyalists, and Obama administration newcomers.

“I look at my home as a means of sharing and communicating with other people, whether they are related to politics, the Red Cross or the arts,” she says.