No superlative was spared when construction of the British Embassy to the United States was completed in 1930. It was a “home fit for a king,” as the Washington Post put it, designed to echo the intimidating elegance of an English country manor.
No superlative was spared when construction of the British Embassy to the United States was completed in 1930. It was a “home fit for a king,” as the Washington Post put it, designed to echo the intimidating elegance of an English country manor.
If the original embassy, which now serves as the ambassador’s residence, captures the sort of high-glamor diplomacy that Netflix would approve of, then the chancellery building next door—all concrete colonnades and flimsy windows—evokes a British state school from the 1960s.
As I wait in the lobby for my escort to meet with Ambassador Karen Pierce, two young British soldiers in uniform mill around the room. “I thought it would be more glamorous,” I hear one of them say to the other. Then I’m whisked through a corridor to the ambassador’s office, lined with portraits of her predecessors dating back to the late 18th century. All of them are men.
In the high stakes world of diplomacy, a Washington posting is the equivalent of competing in the Olympic Games: reserved for only the most limber of envoys. The British ambassador to the United States is the equivalent rank to a four-star general, the only one of its kind in the British foreign service. Since taking up the position in early 2020 during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pierce has served as a steady hand in Washington amid a churn of prime ministers, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the death of the U.K’s longest-reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.
The ambassador’s airy study is dotted with artifacts gathered during Pierce’s 41 years with the foreign office. A vast collection of fridge magnets, more than 20 years in the making, stretches several feet up the wall. “The tackier the better,” she says.
A self-professed “total girl” with a passion for military hardware, Pierce has perched a model of a fighter jet and a limited edition........