HOUSE WORK
With the recent demolition of the White House’s East Wing, we look at how the President’s Palace has changed over the years and what’s to come.
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
The White House property has 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, and 6 levels in the Residence. There are also 412 doors, 147 windows, 28 fireplaces, 8 staircases and 3 elevators. Of the rooms there are a chocolate shop, game room, music room and a flower shop.
National preservation?
According to Section 107 of the National Historic Preservation Act signed in 1966 by President Lyndon Johnson, three buildings and their grounds are exempt from the historic review process: the White House, the US Capitol and the US Supreme Court building.
The above images are renderings of the new ballroom which is expected to seat 600 to 1,000 people. The old building could seat about 200 people and had a 42-seat movie theater on the first floor.
The White House said while the ballroom will be separated from the main building, its theme and “architectural heritage” will be almost identical.
The next phase, which does involve vertical construction, will go through the relevant federal oversight agencies, according to the White House. Construction is expected to last a couple years. It is privately funded.
For more than a century, U.S. Presidents have been renovating, expanding and modernizing the White House.
Notable changes
A view of the Presidents house in the city of Washington after the conflagration of the 24th August 1814 / G. Munger del. ; W. Strickland sculp.
- Construction of the White House began in 1792. The British burned it down in 1814 and it was restored in 1817.
- The president’s office was in the White House until 1909.
- The West Wing was constructed under Theodore Roosevelt’s administration in 1902, and the executive office was moved from the White House to the West Wing.
- President Franklin Roosevelt had a second story built on the West Wing and moved the Oval Office to its current location on the southeastern side. Roosevelt gave the home the name “White House.”
- In 1909, President William Howard Taft remodeled and expanded the West Wing, which included construction of the first Oval Office.
- In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson demolished the colonial garden, modernizing it with a rose garden.
- In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge oversaw the renovation of the upper floors and attic of the White House.
- In 1929, President Herbert Hoover remodeled the West Wing, including reconstruction work in the basement level and remodeling the first floor; after a fire on Christmas Eve, the West Wing was repaired and reopened in 1930.
- In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt overhauled the West Wing, adding a second floor, a larger basement, and a swimming pool and relocating the Oval Office to its current location; in 1942, President Roosevelt constructed the East Wing.
- In 1948, President Harry Truman undertook a “total reconstruction” of the White House’s interior, expanding its foundation and footprint — preserving only its exterior walls.
- In 1962, President John F. Kennedy constructed the modern Rose Garden.
- In 1970, President Nixon converted the swimming pool into the press briefing room; in 1973, he added a bowling alley in the basement.
- In 1975, President Gerald Ford installed an outdoor swimming pool on the South Grounds, financed entirely by private donations.
- In 1993, President Bill Clinton undertook a restoration and refurbishment of the Executive Mansion.
You can take a 360-degree virtual tour of the White House here.
Holding court
- In 2009, President Barack Obama resurfaced the south-grounds tennis court into a basketball court and added the White House Kitchen Garden on the South Lawn.
- In 2020, President Trump and the First Lady completed a new White House tennis pavilion, refurbishing the White House Tennis Court and Grandchildren’s Garden, as well as constructing a new building.
Remodeling the oval office
New administrations change the design of the Oval Office over the years.
Desk decisions
Presidents have used seven different and historic desks in the executive office. Early this year President Trump removed the Resolute Desk out of the Oval Office for refinishing. In the meantime Trump is using the C&O desk.
Gifted to former President Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880, the Resolute Desk is a double pedestal partner’s desk made from oak timbers of the British Ship HMS Resolute, according to The White House Historical Association.
The Georgian-style C&O Desk is made of walnut and features golden handles. The desk’s acronym stands for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway because the desk was built for one of the railway’s owners and later donated to the White House
Sources: The Nixon Presidential Library & Museum, The White House, The Associated Press, The White House Museum, BBC