White House Sketches
The Roosevelts Vacation at Pine Knot, Virginia
August 4, 1906
Left: President Theodore Roosevelt escapes the White House for his vacation retreat, Pine Knot, in this political cartoon. Clifford Berryman, National Archives and Records Administration. Right: Pine Knot, c. 1906. Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Although Theodore Roosevelt and the first family usually spent summers at Oyster Bay, the president and First Lady Edith Roosevelt also enjoyed spending long weekends at Pine Knot near Keene, Virginia. Mrs. Roosevelt purchased the rustic cottage and its 15-acre parcel in 1905 as a retreat to get away from the pressures of office. After a four-hour train ride from Washington, D.C. to the North Garden train station and then another ten miles on horseback or carriage, the small cottage was a remote and private refuge close to nature and an ideal spot for long walks or horseback rides.