On a hot day in June 1933, Benjamin V. Cohen stepped off the train at Washington's Union Station carrying a heavy leather suitcase. His brushed-back reddish brown hair and his rimless glasses conveyed the look of a preoccupied, uncertain scholar. He hailed a taxi and rode to 3238 R Street, where Tom Corcoran was expecting him. Ben looked up at the five-story Italianate mansion as he walked up the steep steps, wondering at Corcoran's extravagance. He was to live in The Little Red House for three and a half years.

The Little Red House was never little. The house was built by Alfred Scott in 1858, when Washington was still a swamp encircled by farms. It first became famous when General Grant lived there at the time of the Civil War and used the capacious grounds for his numerous horses and carriages. It was then known as the Scott-Grant house.

The historic past of the house played no part in Tom Corcoran's impulsive decision to take it on. "Tommy the Cork" was already established as one of the backroom craftsmen of the first 100 days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Tom sought a large house so that he might persuade Ben Cohen to cease commuting from New York; he wanted Ben on the premises.