Merrywood is a historic home located in McLean, Virginia on the Palisades overlooking the Potomac River that has hosted several presidents and members of the British royal family.
The land upon which the estate was built once formed part of General Henry Lee III's Salona Plantation in the late 18th century and was surveyed by George Washington.
In 1959, the Auchinclosses put Merrywood on the market for $850,000, although it eventually sold for $650,000 to a syndicate led by the Magazine Brothers Construction Company that had hoped to use the property for an apartment development.
"[11] On November 14, 1964,[12] the syndicate sold the property for about $660,000 to C. Wyatt Dickerson, a successful businessman,[13] and his wife Nancy, a reporter for CBS and NBC, and the "first female star of television news," which by then had a swimming pool, a tennis court and a gymnasium.
During the Dickerson years, the home was host to Frank Sinatra, James Stewart, Jack Benny, New York Governor W. Averell Harriman, Walter Annenberg, Edward Bennett Williams, and Nancy and Ronald Reagan shortly before his inauguration.
[17] In 1984, Alan I. Kay, a real estate investor,[18] and his wife Dianne Comess bought Merrywood for $4.25 million which was considered "one of the largest sums ever paid in the Washington area for a single-family residence."
Reportedly, "C. Wyatt Dickerson, the Kays and a middleman sealed the deal over a bottle of 1962 Dom Perignon champagne midnight Friday at Georgetown's Pisces Club.