 The Walsh Mansion, completed in 1903, cost $835,000 (the most expensive residence in the city at the time) and had 60 rooms, a theater, a ballroom, a French salon, a grand staircase, and $2 million in furnishings which took several years to purchase and install.Evalyn Walsh married Edward Beale "Ned" McLean (the publishing heir whose family owned "The Washington Post") in 1908, and after her father's death in April 1910 lived in the Walsh Mansion.In 1910, Ned McLean bought the allegedly cursed Hope Diamond for his wife for $180,000 (although the purchase was not formalized until February 1911, and not completed until after a lawsuit settled out of court in 1912).