White House - History, Evolution of structure and interiors

Adams lived in the house only briefly, and the home was soon occupied by Thomas Jefferson who gave consideration to how the White House might be added to.

In 1814, during the War of 1812 much of Washington was burned by British troops in retaliation for burning Upper Canada's Parliament Buildings in the Battle of York (present day Toronto) leaving the White House gutted. A legend emerged that during the rebuilding of the structure white paint was applied to mask the burn damage it had suffered, giving the building its namesake hue. This is unfounded as the building had been painted white since its construction in 1798. Of the numerous spoils taken from the White House when it was ransacked by British troops, only two have been recovered — a painting of George Washington, rescued by then-first lady Dolley Madison, and a jewelry box returned to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1939 by a Canadian man who said his grandfather had taken it from Washington. Contrary to a frequently published myth, the North Portico was not modeled on a similar portico on another Dublin building, the Viceregal Lodge (now Áras an Uachtaráin, residence of the President of Ireland). Its portico in fact postdates the White House porticos' design.

Layout and facts

Today the White House is a complex of three buildings. The residence houses the president's home, and rooms for ceremonies, and official entertaining. The State Floor of the residence building includes the East Room, Green Room, Blue Room, Red Room and State Dining Room. The third floor family residence includes the Yellow Oval Room, East and West Sitting Halls, the President's Dining Room, the Treaty Room, Lincoln Bedroom and Queens Bedroom. Few people realize the size of the White House, since much of it is below ground or otherwise minimized by landscaping. The White House includes; By 1948 the house had became so unsound that President Truman abandoned it, moving across the street to Blair House, from 1949-1951. The President and Mrs. Truman and their daughter Margaret, moved back into the White House on March 27, 1952. While the house was saved by the Truman reconstruction, much of the new interior finishes were generic, and of little historic value. The walls of the Vermeil Room, Library, China Room, and Map Room on the ground floor of the main residence were paneled in wood from the timbers.

The Kennedy restoration

Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of President John F. Kennedy (1961–63), directed the most extensive and historic redecoration of the house in its history. Henry Francis du Pont of the Winterthur Museum chaired a White House Fine Arts Committee. Research was conducted on the use and decoration of the house's primary rooms. Different periods of the early republic were selected as a theme for each room: the Federal style for the Green Room, French Empire for the Blue Room, American Empire for the Red Room, Louis XVI for the Yellow Oval Room, and Victorian for the president's study renamed the Treaty Room. Many of the antiques, fine paintings, and other improvements of the Kennedy period were donated to the White House by affluent donors, including the Crowninshield family, Jane Engelhard, Jayne Wrightsman, and the Oppenheimer family. The Kennedy restoration resulted in a White House that was almost regal in feeling, and which recalled the French taste of Madison and Monroe. Much of the French taste originated with the interior decorator Stéphane Boudin of the House of Jansen, a Paris interior design firm that had designed interiors for Elsie de Wolfe, Lady Olive Baillie, the royal families of Belgium and Iran, the German Reichsbank during the period of National Socialism, and Leeds Castle in Kent. The first White House guide book was produced under the direction of curator Lorraine Waxman Pearce with direct supervision from Jacqueline Kennedy.

Establishment of the Committee for the Preservation of the White House

The Kennedy's Fine Arts Committee eventually became the congressionally authorized Committee for the Preservation of the White House, whose mission is to maintain the historical integrity of the White House. The committee works with the First Family, usually represented by the First Lady, the White House Curator, the Chief Usher of the White House, and the White House Curator of Fine Arts. Since the committee's establishment, every presidential family has made some changes to the family quarters of the White House, but changes to the State Rooms must all be approved by the Committee for the Preservation of the White House. During the Nixon administration, First Lady Pat Nixon refurbished the Green Room, Blue Room and Red Room, working with Clement Conger, the curator they appointed. In the 1990s President and Mrs. Clinton had some of the rooms refurbished by Arkansas decorator Kaki Hockersmith. During the Clinton administration the East Room, Blue Room, State Dining Room and Lincoln Sitting Room were refurbished. Bush's administration, and the refurbishment of the Green Room and East Room has begun. The White House is one of the first government buildings in Washington that was made wheelchair-accessible, with modifications having been made during the presidency of Franklin D.

The West Wing

In the early twentieth century, new buildings were added to the colonnades at either side of the main White House to accommodate the President's growing staff. The West Wing houses the President's office (the Oval Office) and offices of his senior staff, with room for about 50 employees. It also includes the Cabinet Room, where the United States Cabinet meets, and the White House Situation Room. Some members of the President's staff are located in the adjacent Old Executive Office Building in the former State War and Navy building, sometimes known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

The East Wing

The East Wing, which contains additional office space, was added to the White House in 1942. Among its uses, the East Wing has intermittently housed the offices and staff of the First Lady, and the White House Social Office.

The White House grounds

Before the construction of the North Portico most public events were entered from the South Lawn, which was graded and planted by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson also drafted a planting plan for the North lawn that included large trees that would have mostly obscured the house from Pennsylvania Avenue. During the mid to late nineteenth century a series of ever larger green houses were built on the west side of the house, where the current West Wing is located. Although the White House grounds have had many gardeners through their history, the general design, still largely used as master plan today, was designed in 1935 by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. During the Kennedy administration the White House Rose Garden was redesigned by Rachel Lambert Mellon.

Public access and security

Like the English and Irish country houses it was modeled on, the White House was, from the start, remarkably open to the public until the early part of the twentieth century. President Thomas Jefferson held an open house for his second inaugural in 1805, when many of the people at his swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol followed him home, where he greeted them in the Blue Room. Those open houses sometimes became rowdy: in 1829, President Andrew Jackson had to leave for a hotel when roughly 20,000 citizens celebrated his inauguration inside the White House. Even so, the practice continued until 1885, when newly elected Grover Cleveland arranged for a presidential review of the troops from a grandstand in front of the White House instead of the traditional open house. The White House remained accessible in other ways as well; In recent years, however, the White House has been closed to visitors because of terrorism concerns.

On May 20, 1995, primarily as a response to the Oklahoma City bombing of April 19, 1995, but also in reaction to several other incidents, (see Security Review) the United States Secret Service closed off Pennsylvania Avenue to vehicular traffic in front of the White House from the eastern edge of Lafayette Park to 17th Street. Later, the closure was extended an additional block to the east to 15th Street, and East Executive Drive, a small street between the White House and the Treasury Building was closed to the public.

Prior to its inclusion within the fenced compound that now includes the Old Executive Office Building to the West and the Treasury Building to the east, this sidewalk served as a queuing area for the daily public tours of the White House. In September of 2003 they were resumed on a limited basis for groups making prior arrangements through their Congressional representatives and submitting to background checks, but the White House remains closed to the general public. As for security considerations, they note that the White House is set much further back from the street than numerous other sensitive federal buildings are.

The White House Complex is protected by the United States Secret Service and the United States Park Police.

The Whitehouse.gov website

The official White House website is http://www.whitehouse.gov/. The two versions of the White House website used by the Clinton administration have been archived by the National Archives and Records Administration. The first White House site can be found at http://clinton1.nara.gov/, and the second at http://clinton2.nara.gov/. A Frenchman in Camelot: The Decoration of the Kennedy White House by Stéphane Boudin. Boscobel Restoration Inc.: 1995. Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration. Van Nostrand Reinhold: 1998. An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History. Simon & The White House: The Historic Furnishing & The President's House. White House Historical Association and the National Geographic Society: 1986. Seale, William, The White House: The History of an American Idea. White House Historical Association: 1992, 2001. Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies. Coward, McCann & A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. The White House: An Historic Guide. White House Historical Association and the National Geographic Society: 2001.