[1] In 1889, three months prior to the Proclamation of the Republic, Manoel Gomes de Carvalho, the Baron of Rio Negro, purchased from the heirs of the Klippel family the lot where his summer residence would be built.

He engaged Italian architect Antonio Jannuzzi, a friend of his, to design the palace and it was completed later in 1889.

Since then, sixteen Presidents have made use of the Rio Negro: Rodrigues Alves, Afonso Pena, Nilo Peçanha, Hermes da Fonseca, Wenceslau Brás, Epitácio Pessoa, Artur Bernardes, Washington Luiz, Getúlio Vargas, Gaspar Dutra, Café Filho, Juscelino Kubitschek, João Goulart, Costa e Silva, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and most recently Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

[4][2] It was during the administration of Hermes da Fonseca, that the Palace lived its most brilliant moment, with the wedding of the President and Nair de Tefé – a celebrity at the time, due to her beauty, intelligence, and the caricatures that she published under the pseudonym of Rian.

Since the transfer of the seat of Government to the newly founded Capital City of Brasília, in 1960, use of Rio Negro Palace declined sharply.