Exclusive | CBS legends widow lists DC home where they entertained media A-listers and politicians across the aisle
It’s not the White House, but it sure is a nice house.The Washington, DC home of Bill Plante, who served as a CBS News White House correspondent for four administrations and entertained storied journalists and the politicians they covered for dozens of dinner parties, has listed for $3.5 million.Plante and his wife, the Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Robin Smith, brought together elected officials from both sides of the aisle like Democratic Sen.Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Ronald Reagan’s deputy chief of staff Michael Deaver.
They mingled with journalists like Sam Donaldson, Andrea Mitchell and Lesley Stahl at the couple’s Georgetown residence, a rare detached home in the neighborhood of historic rowhouses.“We’d have the whole ’60 Minutes’ crowd when they were in town,” Smith said.Plante, who also anchored “CBS Sunday Night News” for seven years, died in 2022 at age 84.Smith is relocating from a block in which journalist Bob Woodward lives across the street and the Atlantic humor writer Alexandra Petri lives a few doors down. Plante and Smith bought the three-story, four-bedroom, four-bath Italianate-style house, built in 1900, at 3034 Q St.
NW in 1987 for $435,000.Smith recalls that Plante was reluctant to leave their nearby Georgetown condo, but was sold when he discovered the small south-facing garden, which they renovated and professionally landscaped, adding a flagstone patio and a water feature.“For me, adding that terrace in the back was a life changer because it’s like a whole other room,” said Smith, who founded the nonprofit production company Video/Action and has had films broadcast on PBS, including a documentary on civil rights activist and congressman John Lewis.Bay windows front the street and jut from the side of the 2,900-square-foot tan brick house, bringing in light that flows from the living room all the way to the glass-walled two-story addition that Smith and Plante built onto the back of the house.
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