With the Wilson House Closed, Kalorama's December Runs Through Anderson House

On S Street NW, the house where Woodrow and Edith Wilson made their home after leaving the White House in 1921 will stay closed through the holidays. A few blocks away on Massachusetts Avenue, Anderson House is open six days a week through December 31. Its main exhibition of the year closes on a Sunday in January.

So this season Kalorama's open house museum is the one on Massachusetts Avenue, and its exhibition has a deadline. If a Kalorama December usually includes a house museum, a lecture or a holiday evening with guests, nearly all of it happens on Massachusetts Avenue and Kalorama Road this year. The dates are tighter than they look.

The S Street house is closed until spring

The President Woodrow Wilson House at 2340 S St NW closed to the public on September 21, 2026, for a major preservation project that includes a new HVAC system. Its homepage says the closure runs through May 1, 2027, and that the museum will not offer tours, public programs or private event rentals until then. The museum calls the work an investment in preserving "our 109-year-old historic house and its collections," and it expects to reopen in spring 2027.

So this year the Wilson House is out of December plans entirely. You can't rent it for a party, book a tour for visiting family, or attend an evening program there. The house's public life is paused until spring, and its share of Kalorama's December falls to the next building over.

Anderson House is open, and its exhibition is ending

Anderson House, at 2118 Massachusetts Ave NW, is the headquarters of the Society of the Cincinnati and its American Revolution Institute. This year its changing gallery holds Voices of Revolution, which opened February 28, 2026, and closes January 10, 2027.

The Institute's exhibition page ties the show to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It follows the people who fought or worked in the Revolutionary War through the battlefields where they met. Well-known sites like Yorktown and Brandywine sit beside smaller ones like Young's House in New York and Pensacola in Florida. The people include American, French, British, Loyalist, Black, Native American, German and Spanish participants, plus women. The show uses their own words, belongings and portraits, drawn from the Institute's collection and from other museums and private collectors. The Institute has also published a catalog and a companion digital interactive for the show.

The anniversary year ends just as the show closes. Visits fall into three windows.

Two of the three December closures land on Thursdays. Christmas Eve, December 24, and New Year's Eve, December 31, both fall on a Thursday this year, and Christmas Day is the Friday between them. The last two weeks of December are the easiest time to bring houseguests, and both are a day short. Once winter hours begin on January 1, Tuesdays are gone too. The final Sunday has only four open hours.

What a $9 ticket covers

Anderson House is guided only. Docents lead one-hour tours of the first and second floors, and you can't walk the house on your own. Tours start at 15 minutes past each hour. The first starts at 10:15 a.m. on weekdays and Saturdays and at 12:15 p.m. on Sundays. The last starts at 3:15 p.m. every day.

Full details are on the Anderson House tours page. Adults pay $12. D.C. residents with ID pay $9, the same as seniors and active-duty military. College students and ages 13 to 18 pay $6, and children 12 and under are free. The ticket covers the guided house tour plus the changing exhibition gallery, which you see on your own. The Institute suggests 20 to 30 minutes there. Tickets are sold online and at the door.

A full visit therefore takes about an hour and a half. The 3:15 tour runs until the 4 p.m. close, so there is no time left for the gallery afterward. To see Voices of Revolution, take the 2:15 tour or an earlier one.

Evenings on Kalorama Road

After dark, the season moves a few blocks north. Embassy Experiences, a ticketing site, lists three paid evenings at residences in and near Kalorama between publication day and mid-December.

• Thursday, November 19, 6:30 to 9 p.m. "Embassy of Portugal: Evening at the Residence of the Ambassador," 2125 Kalorama Rd NW. General admission is $139, attendance is capped at 80, and the program includes Portuguese food and a concert by Pedro H. da Silva.
• Friday, December 4, 7 to 9:30 p.m. "Holiday Embassy Evening at the Ukraine House," 2134 Kalorama Rd NW. General admission is $78. The listing describes Ukrainian food, holiday dance and art, with a charitable component.
• Thursday, December 10, 7 to 9:30 p.m. "Holiday Celebration at the Embassy of Haiti," 2311 Massachusetts Ave NW. General admission is $69, and the program includes Haitian food, music and dance.

The Portugal evening falls on the day this post publishes. With 80 seats, it may not have room left. The Ukraine House evening is the one that falls on a Friday. The Ukraine House at 2134 and the Portuguese residence at 2125 are both on Kalorama Road.

The Haiti event has a detail that matters before you buy. The Embassy Experiences listing says the evening is organized by Things To Do DC and that the registration fee is not related to the Embassy of Haiti. It's a ticketed event held at the embassy address, and the embassy is not the organizer.

December 10 has two evening options

On Thursday, December 10, Anderson House and the Haiti evening both have something on at the same time.

At Anderson House, "Lecture: The Gunboat Philadelphia and the Battle of Valcour Island" runs 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. The Institute asks people to register and offers both in-person and virtual links. The Haiti celebration on Massachusetts Avenue starts at 7 p.m.

The overlap is only a problem if you want to be in both rooms. You can watch the lecture online and spend the evening on Massachusetts Avenue. You can also stay on the Anderson House side all day:

1. Take the 2:15 p.m. house tour, then spend the remaining time in the gallery before the 4 p.m. close.
2. Have an early dinner in the neighborhood.
3. Come back for the 6:30 p.m. lecture in person.

That plan gives you the house, the exhibition and the Institute's last in-person December lecture in one trip, a month before the show closes.

Two more dates, both online or out of town

The Institute's other December programs take place elsewhere. "Virtual Lecture: Underappreciated Victory: Bernardo de Gálvez's Mississippi River Campaign Against the British in 1779" is online on Wednesday, December 2, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., and registration is required. The Institute's events calendar also lists the "Ten Crucial Days Battlefield Tour" from 5:30 p.m. December 4 to 5 p.m. December 5. It takes place in Princeton, New Jersey.

That leaves December 10 as the only Institute lecture at Anderson House between publication day and the exhibition's close. Weekday tours run on the regular schedule through the end of the month.

The calendar, start to finish

The Wilson House is on S Street, a few blocks from every address on this list, and it is due to reopen in spring 2027.

If you're planning around Kalorama this winter, whether that means hosting guests, timing a move or deciding when to list a home on one of these blocks, Jack Realty Group keeps close track of the neighborhood's calendar. Book a neighborhood consultation and we'll go over the dates that matter for your street.