Saturday, May 4, 2024

The White House: Everything You Need to Know About the US Presidents Residence

white house interior

On August 24, 1814, British troops marched on Washington, DC, and burned the White House, the Capitol, and several other public buildings. Hoban returned to rebuild the residence, and while work was completed in 1817, he continued to work on additions for several more years. In 1824, he added the South Portico for James Monroe, and he constructed the North Portico for Andrew Jackson from 1829 to 1830.

Bill Clinton had a new blue rug installed.

During the war of 1812, British soldiers set fire to 14-year-old house (and a number of other government buildings) in what is now described as the Burning of Washington, forcing then president James Madison into a temporary residence elsewhere in the city. Hoban, working with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, would later add the now-famous South and North Porticos in 1824 and 1829, respectively. Helmed by George Washington himself, the process for building a home for the young nation’s leader began with a competition. The president’s favorite came from Irish-born architect James Hoban, whose work Washington had admired in Charleston’s County Courthouse. Construction on the classically-inspired structure began in 1792 and finished in 1800, just in time for the country’s second president, John Adams, to call it home. Adele’s long hallway leading from her foyer features a gorgeous Persian runner rug atop the wood floors, and an orange and white artwork on the wall.

A Look at the Most Impressive—and Fascinating—White House Interiors Throughout History

white house interior

On the walls overlooking the pool was a mural by artist Bernard Lammotte, who painted the Christiansted Harbor from the island of Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. 36 years later, Richard Nixon nixed the underground pool and turned the space above it into a press briefing room to host televised broadcasts. In many ways ahead of its time, the Carter administration installed the White House's very first computer as well as a set of water-heating solar panels. The panels were removed by the Reagan administration and later reinstalled under George W. Bush. Chester Arthur, successor to the assassinated James Garfield, set out to add a staunchly Victorian flair to the White House after he took office. His contributions included a giant Louis Comfort Tiffany screen and gilded tracery throughout, all the while putting a great deal of the home’s existing furnishings up for public auction.

A Green Kitchen

You brought our game home and brought us all together,” a smiling Adele wrote in the caption while wearing a shirt with England’s team logo. Stairs featuring another gorgeous rug at the back of Adele’s kitchen offers quick access to the second floor of her home. The singer has two red sofas opposite each other in a sitting room off the kitchen and in between her formal living room.

Mrs. Kennedy's renovation focused on reincorporating historic furniture and decor. “It just seemed to me such a shame when we came here to find hardly anything of the past in the house, hardly anything before 1902,” she explained in the broadcast. She cited Colombia’s Presidential Palace as a site where “every piece of furniture in it has some link with the past. I thought the White House should be like that.” Kennedy was so passionate about allowing the public to access the People’s House that following the suspension of tours after her husband's assassination in 1963, she requested that the tours resume just one week later. Less than fifty years after the Roosevelt renovation, the White House was already showing signs of serious structural weakness.

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President Truman wanted the walls of his second- floor oval study and his bed­ room painted rather than cov­ered with the fabrics that had been suggested. Several Victorian marble mantels were replaced, as were, with one or two excep­tions, the wood mantels Truman wanted removed. President George Washington, who lived in presidential residences in New York and Philadelphia, selected the site of the nation’s capital on the Potomac River for an executive mansion with the help of French architect Pierre Charles L’Enfant, who designed the plan of the city.

Haight and Delano, with the approval of Finley, jointly rec­ommended painting the oak-paneled walls of the State Dining Room. They believed that such a room—if it had been built in the period of the original White House—would have been painted, and they thought that a lighter appearance would be a more gracious background for entertaining. They and other committee members also had concerns about the condition of the paneling, which showed hand tooling marks and nail scars. While there are no colorized photos of these rooms under Tiffany’s direction, there are black and white photographs, and a colorful oil painting of what the stained glass screen likely looked like—so we can only imagine how magical it appeared in real life. It’s believed that after the screen was removed, it was sold at auction and later installed at Maryland’s Belvedere Hotel, which was destroyed in a fire in 1923.

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Marine One travels abroad with the president, as well.

Ford’s pool was built on the South Lawn, and Roosevelt’s indoor pool was covered and turned into a press briefing room. It wasn’t until 1909—over a century after the White House’s completion—that the Oval Office was created. Then-President William Howard Taft added this room and had it painted in an army green shade, which has since been changed as every president likes to make the space their own. Until 1901, what we know as the White House was actually called the Executive Mansion, which then-President Theodore Roosevelt didn’t find ideal—given that many U.S. states had a governor’s residence that was also called the executive mansion. Roosevelt subsequently coined the term that we know and still use to this day, which can also be seen atop copies of his stationery. The White House was designed by Irish architect James Hoban in the Neoclassical style of architecture and built over the course of eight years (from 1792 to 1800).

Presidential and First Lady Portraits

He was given supervision over the interior decoration and worked closely in New York with Charles Haight of Altman. Visitors come from around the world to the nation's capital to get a glimpse of the impressive structure. The following White House photos show closeup views of the home and office of the U.S. According to Smith, it was paramount that the White House felt like a welcoming and comfortable home. Tham Kannalikham, the decorator during the Trump presidency, explains, “As I worked through the design process it was an abiding principle that any interiors reflect that unique privilege. So, how does a first family balance history and tradition between the private and public quarters of the house?

If Truman saved the home’s structural integrity, then the Kennedys saved its historical integrity. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, along with the help of Sister Parish, Henry de Pont, and Stéphane Boudin, famously redecorated the White House with historic art and artifacts sourced from museum collections and prominent American families. The public was treated to a tour of the revamped house in a now iconic televised special. Though it is a constant fixture in America’s public consciousness—those famous Rose Garden press conferences, Oval Office photo opportunities, Marine One landings on the South Lawn—the White House itself is far less often a media subject of its own. Maybe Trump will find the home more to his liking now with the recent completion of a $3.4 million overhaul to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The building was reconstructed and expanded with the addition of the South Portico in 1824 and the North in 1829. The Executive Residence is made up of six stories, the Ground Floor, State Floor, Second Floor, and Third Floor, and a two-story basement. Beautiful landscaping has graced the White House grounds since the administration of Thomas Jefferson. The South Lawn features over three dozen commemorative trees that date back to the 1870s.

The helicopters also frequently change positions after takeoff to make it harder to determine which one the president is on. President Dwight Eisenhower was the first president to fly in a helicopter in an official capacity in 1957, according to the US Naval Institute. "Not being afraid to ask some of the difficult questions. We know that that does not increase or worsen the risk for suicide. It actually can save a life." If you have a loved one dealing with a mental health crisis, Dr. Zucker recommends checking in often and asking about their thoughts. According to psychiatrist Ashley Zucker with Kaiser Permanente San Bernardino, suicide rates have not recovered two years after the pandemic. The approach aims to reduce substance abuse, train more personnel and address the needs of those in underserved communities.

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