Government House is ideally located for the grinding schedule of the state's chief executive. Ehrlich's commute consists of a 20-yard stroll across State Circle. But the location is less than perfect for a family.
Beyond the gates is Annapolis's historic downtown, with its cobblestone walks, bustling Main Street businesses and four-story brick offices of the Maryland Senate and House of Delegates. The nearest residential neighborhood is several blocks away. Tour groups congregate most summer days on Lawyer's Mall, just outside the mansion's back door.
Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and his 5-year-old son, Drew, toss a plastic football in the governor's mansion.
(Photo Grant L. Gursky for The Washington Post)
|
|
Ehrlich said he was tossing a football on the front lawn with Drew one afternoon when he first felt the odd sensation of living under glass. "I had to accept there would always be people leaning up on the gate looking in," Ehrlich said. "I didn't like it at first. But they've been friendly, and also respectful. Most don't try to get engaged in a prolonged conversation."
The governor, who is a former college football linebacker, said he helped his son adjust to the new house with nightly games of catch, and an endless succession of squirt gun battles that have become so frenetic that Drew once launched an attack while his dad was doing an interview on Fox News.
Kendel Ehrlich says she has tried to protect her children from the public microscope by blending into the community as much as possible. The family joined a popular marina pool in nearby Eastport. Both boys have had regular play dates at the mansion, and Drew has hosted school parties at the house. On Halloween, the Ehrlichs inflated a giant pumpkin on the stately front lawn and invited over Drew's friends from school, who showed up dressed as princesses and action figures.
"Everybody is low-key about it," Kendel said. "Sometimes the kids make a comment, like, 'Wow, Drew's house is really big.' But I think that's pretty normal."
Having a young family in the mansion also has meant adjustments for the staff, most of whom have had long careers there.
The first lady said many of the state troopers assigned to protect the family have children of their own, and bachelors on the force get a crash course in parenting. "We break them in by making them hold stinky diapers," she laughed. "They don't teach that in Maryland state trooper training."
Chef John Leszczynski, 28, said he also had to adapt to the new occupants after eight years cooking for Gov. Parris N. Glendening. Ehrlich's Democratic predecessor is a vegetarian partial to organic produce. "We keep a lot more fries in the freezer now," Leszczynski said dryly, as he put a tray of Rockfish fillets in the oven.
The basement kitchen is long and narrow, lined with stainless steel cabinets, and is well equipped for a team of chefs that regularly prepares formal dinners for the governor and his guests.
But the modest, unfinished wooden table at one end of the room is also the place where the first family now feels most at home. It is there that Joshua gets his morning bottle, Drew eats cereal, and Kendel grabs a morning coffee. And when dinner is over, Leszczynski said, Drew comes downstairs to help with dishes.
Making sure Drew had regular chores was part of the most important mission Kendel Ehrlich says she committed to when the family moved into the mansion two years ago.
"As a mother, you have to maintain that perspective," she said, "that one day this will come to an end, and life will all become regular again."
