There has been some consternation expressed about changes that the Trump administration is making to the White House, including the East Wing demolition, paving over the Rose Garden, and plans for a grand ballroom.
Let’s put some historical perspective on this: The first president to occupy the White House, John Adams, did so 225 years ago last month, and the building and grounds have been undergoing change ever since.
Construction of the White House had begun during George Washington’s first term — specifically, at noon on October 13, 1792, with the laying of the cornerstone. The main residence and foundations of the house were built largely by both enslaved and free African-American laborers and European immigrants, many of whom had not yet obtained citizenship. The sandstone walls, for example, were erected by men from Scotland.
The initial construction took place over a period of eight years at a reported cost of $232,371.83 (equivalent to over $4 million today). Although not yet completed, the White House was ready for occupancy by the end of October 1800.
Due in part to material and labor shortages, the architect’s plan for a grand palace was five times larger than the White House that was eventually built. The finished structure contained only two main floors, instead of the planned three, and a less costly brick served as a lining for the stone façades. When construction was finished, the porous sandstone walls were whitewashed with a mixture of lime, rice glue, casein and lead, giving the house its familiar color and name.
On Saturday, November 1, John Adams became the first president to take up residence in the building. The next day, he wrote his wife, Abigail: “I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this House, and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”
President Franklin Roosevelt had Adams’s blessing carved into the mantel in the State Dining Room. I’m not sure about the “honest” and “wise” parts, but it is true that all the presidents who have occupied the White House have been men.
Adams lived in the house only briefly before Thomas Jefferson moved into the “pleasant country residence” in March 1801. Despite his complaints that the house was too big (“big enough for two emperors, one pope, and the grand lama in the bargain”), Jefferson considered how the White House might be expanded. With Benjamin Latrobe, he helped lay out the design for the East and West Colonnades, small wings that help conceal the domestic operations of laundry, a stable and storage. Today, Jefferson’s colonnades link the residence with the West and East Wings (or what is left of the latter).
In 1814, during the War of 1812, the White House was set ablaze by British forces in retaliation for acts of destruction by American troops in Upper Canada. Only the exterior walls remained, and they had to be torn down and mostly reconstructed because of weakening from the fire and subsequent exposure to the elements, except for portions of the south wall.
Of the numerous objects taken from the White House when it was sacked by the British, only three have been recovered. White House employees and slaves rescued a copy of the Lansdowne portrait, and in 1939 a Canadian man returned a jewelry box to President Franklin Roosevelt, claiming that his grandfather had taken it from Washington. In the same year, a medicine chest that had belonged to President James Madison was returned by the descendants of a Royal Navy officer.
Some observers allege that most of the spoils of war taken during the attack were lost when a convoy of British ships sank on the way to Halifax during a storm on the night of November 24, 1814.
After the fire, President Madison resided in the Octagon House in 1814 and then in the Seven Buildings from 1815 to the end of his term. Meanwhile, the reconstruction of the White House lasted from 1815 until 1817. The south portico was constructed in 1824 during the James Monroe administration. The north portico was built in 1830, when Andrew Jackson was in office.
By the time of the Civil War, the White House had become overcrowded. The location of it, just north of a canal and swampy lands, which provided conditions ripe for malaria and other diseases, was questioned.
Brigadier General Nathaniel Michler was tasked with proposing solutions to address these concerns. He suggested abandoning the use of the White House as a residence, and he designed a new estate for the first family at Meridian Hill in Washington, D.C. Congress, however, rejected the plan. Another option was Metropolis View, which is now the campus of the Catholic University of America. When Chester A. Arthur (a part-time Sag Harbor resident) took office in 1881, a proposal was made to build a new residence south of the White House, but it failed to gain support.
In 1902, Theodore Roosevelt hired McKim, Mead & White to carry out expansions and renovations in a neoclassical style suited to the building’s architecture, removing the Tiffany screen and all Victorian additions. Charles McKim himself designed and managed the project, which gave more living space to the president’s large family by removing a staircase in the West Hall and moving executive office staff from the second floor of the residence into the new West Wing.
President William Taft added additional space to the West Wing, which included the addition of the Oval Office. President Franklin Roosevelt had the Oval Office moved to its present location, adjacent to the Rose Garden.
In 2003, the George W. Bush administration installed solar thermal heaters. These units are used to heat water for landscape maintenance personnel and for the presidential pool and spa. One hundred sixty-seven solar photovoltaic grid-tied panels were installed at the same time on the roof of the maintenance facility.
In 2013, President Barack Obama had a set of solar panels installed on the roof of the White House, making it the first time that solar power was used for the president’s living quarters.
So, what President Trump is doing may be rather dramatic — but it’s not unprecedented. Bring on the ballroom!
More Posts from Tom Clavin
