Navy Secretary John Phelan’s D.C. Kalorama home damaged in fire
Washington — The home of U.S. Navy Secretary John Phelan in Washington, D.C., was damaged in a fire on Monday, according to multiple U.S. officials.
The house, purchased last month for about $8.6 million, was being renovated and was unoccupied when the fire began, sources told CBS News.
The home, a three-story English manor-style mansion in the 2400 block of Kalorama Road, caught fire twice in 24 hours. Officials said the fire, initially limited to one floor, had been extinguished just after 10 p.m., but was on fire again early Tuesday, WUSA reported. Flames swept through all three floors out the roof.
D.C. Fire and EMS posted on X a video of the fire that had been recorded by a neighbor.
A Navy spokesperson confirmed to CBS News that the residence is John and Amy Phelans’ and said the family was not home when the fire broke out.
Black smoke could be seen rising from the Kalorama neighborhood early Tuesday morning. D.C. Fire Chief John Donnelly told WUSA the blaze was caused by an electrical event.
Arson investigators were examining the scene as a matter of routine, said Vito Maggiolo, a public information officer for the D.C. Fire Department. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also responded.
Maggiolo said the initial fire was “accidental,” and the cause of the second was underdetermined, as of Tuesday afternoon.
The nearly 7,000-square foot English manor tucked into the heart of Washington’s Kalorama neighborhood was owned for more than two decades by Stuart Bernstein of the Bernstein Companies. Bernstein was the U.S. ambassador to Denmark under President George W. Bush.
The manor was sold in an all-cash transaction to District Interests LLC, a Florida-based limited liability company managed by Tallahassee developer Richard Yates Jr., according to reporting by the Washington Business Journal.
Phelan was a businessman before he was nominated to be Navy secretary. In announcing his nomination, President Trump said Phelan had previously founded Rugger Management LLC, a private investment firm based in Palm Beach, Florida, and co-founded MSD Capital, LP, which manages the assets of Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell and his family.
Erielle Delzer and James LaPorta contributed to this report.