Bill Clinton and the nuclear launch codes were in the dining room. Now this house is for sale

A 1930s house visited by former President Bill Clinton three times is on the market in Sacramento’s Land Park neighborhood for $1,975,000.

The 4,000-square-foot home on 13th Avenue is owned by Phil Angelides, the former state treasurer and Democratic candidate for governor in 2006. He and his wife, Julie, hosted fundraisers with Bill Clinton three times, once when Clinton was running for president in 1992 and again when he was president in 1996. The last time was in 2016 when Hillary Clinton was running for president. (Bill visited; Hillary didn’t.)

In July 1996, the Secret Service came to the house days in advance of the president’s visit to secure the perimeter and check out the neighborhood. The agents set up headquarters in an upstairs bedroom that’s filled with stuffed animals and a crib.

“The upstairs children’s playroom was converted into the command center for the U.S. while President Clinton was there,” Angelides said.

Angelides said the sight of the presidential motorcade pulling up was “very emotional.” The “nuclear football” – a briefcase containing the launch codes for the nation’s nuclear arsenal – stayed in the Angelides’ dining room with the military aide who carried it. President Clinton used the dining room as a reception area.

Each time Bill Clinton visited for fundraisers, he stayed for two or three hours as donors mingled in the house, with its pinkish stucco and tall red-tiled roof, and the backyard, which has a secluded garden and swimming pool.

Once, Clinton visited in the middle of a Sacramento heatwave, and Angelides said he was so worried about the house being cool enough that he ran the air conditioning all night before the president arrived. The AC froze up, and Angelides had to call in repairmen that morning to fix it. They stayed to make sure it kept working and got to meet the president, Angelides said.

The home has hosted other dignitaries, including Nancy Pelosi when she was the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to scale Mount Everest, dropped by unexpectedly one time with his friend Richard Blum, Feinstein’s husband. Julie Angelides served them chocolate chip cookies. Phil wasn’t home, but he got to meet Sir Edmund later.

The Angelides’ said their fondest memories in the home weren’t VIP visits but the birthdays, prom parties and graduation celebrations for their three daughters, now grown.

Both Phil and Julie Angelides grew up nearby, including in the South Land Park neighborhood. Julie Angelides remembers walking by her future house when she was a student at C.K. McClatchy High School and dreaming she lived there.

Nearly thirty years ago she got the chance when the house went up for sale, but everything wasn’t so dreamy. The house needed a major rehab, including a new kitchen, and the couple had to wash their dishes in the bathtub.

“When we bought it, I sat in the kitchen and cried,” Julie Angelides recalled. “I said ‘maybe dreams shouldn’t come true.’ It needed so much work.”

Now, she said, she’s sad they’re moving. But like many empty-nesters in their 60s, the couple have decided to downsize. They are moving to a 2,300-square-foot flat in McKinley Village, a new East Sacramento neighborhood that Phil Angelides, a longtime developer, co-developed with the New Home Company.

“If we move now we’ll have another 30 years of memories in our new place,” Phil Angelides said.

The Angelides’ house was listed in June by Coldwell Banker agent Christina Hinds. See the listing, with 36 photos, here.

This story was originally published June 2, 2017 at 4:10 PM with the headline "Bill Clinton and the nuclear launch codes were in the dining room. Now this house is for sale."