White House
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The southern side of the White House |
The
White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the
President of the United States of America.
The White House is a
white-painted,
neoclassical sandstone mansion located at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue NW in
Washington, D.C.. As the office of the U.S. President, the term "White House" is often used as a synonym for the president's administration. The property is owned by the
National Park Service and is part of "
President's Park."
An image of the White House is on the back of the
American twenty dollar bill.
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North side of the White House
This is the official entrance of the White House. It is used when foreign heads of state visit. |
The architect was chosen in a competition, which received nine proposals.
James Hoban, an Irishman, was awarded the honor and construction began with the laying of the cornerstone on
November 10,
1792. The building Hoban designed was modeled on the first and second floors of
Leinster House, a ducal palace in
Dublin,
Ireland, which is now the seat of the
Irish Parliament. Contrary to a frequently published myth, the North portico was not modelled 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 portico's design. The capital was placed on land ceded by two states—Virginia and Maryland—which both ceded the land to the federal government in response to a compromise with President Washington. The D.C. commissioners were charged by Congress with building the new city under the direction of the President.
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19th Century view of the White House as seen from the southwest, with the old West Wing visible. |
Construction of the White House was completed on
November 1,
1800. Over an extremely slow 8 years of construction, $232,371.83 was spent. This would be approximately equivalent to $2.4 million today (recalculated for recent inflation).
The front and rear porticoes were not part of the structure until about 1825.
The building was originally referred to as the
Presidential Mansion.
Dolley Madison called it the "President's Castle." However, by 1811 the first evidence of the public calling it the "White House" emerged, because of its white-painted stone exterior. The name
Executive Mansion was often used in official context until President
Theodore Roosevelt established the formal name by having "The White House" engraved on his stationery in 1901.
John Adams became the first president to take residence in the building on
November 1,
1800. In
1814, during the
War of 1812, much of
Washington, D.C., was burned down by British troops in retalliation for burning down
Upper Canada's Parliament Buildings in the
Battle of York (present day Toronto) leaving the White House gutted, only the exterior walls remained. Popular legend holds 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, however, 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. Most of the booty was lost when a convoy of British ships led by
HMS Fantome sank en route to
Halifax off
Prospect during a storm on the night of
24 November 1814. [
1]
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Leinster House in Dublin
The 18th-century ducal palace in Dublin served as a model for the White House. |
The White House was attacked again on
August 16,
1841, when U.S. President
John Tyler vetoed a bill which called for the reestablishment of the
Second Bank of the United States. Enraged
Whig Party members rioted outside the White House in what was (and still is,
as of 2006) the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history.
Like the English and Irish country houses it resembled, the White House was 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.
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North Portico of the White House. |
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. His aides ultimately had to lure the mob outside with washtubs filled with a potent cocktail of orange juice and whiskey. 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.
Jefferson also permitted public tours of his home, which have continued ever since, except during wartime, and began the tradition of annual receptions on New Year's Day and on the Fourth of July. Those receptions ended in the early 1930s.
The White House remained open in other ways as well; President
Abraham Lincoln complained that he was constantly beleaguered by job seekers waiting to ask him for political appointments or other favors, or eccentric dispensers of advice like "General"
Daniel Pratt, as he began the business day. Lincoln put up with the annoyance rather than risk alienating some associate or friend of a powerful politician or opinion maker. In recent years, however, the White House has been closed to visitors because of terrorism concerns.
The White House was designated a
National Historic Landmark on
December 19,
1960.
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The Cross hall, connecting the State Dining Room and the East Room. To the left is the official entrance of the house from the North Portico, to the right above the door is the Official Presidential Seal. |
Few people realize the size of the White House, since much of it is below ground or otherwise minimized by
landscaping. In fact, the White House has:
* 6 stories and 55,000 ft² (5,100 m²) of floor space
* 132 rooms and 35 bathrooms [
2]
* 412 doors
* 147 windows
* 28 fireplaces
* 8 staircases
* 3 elevators
* 5 full-time chefs
* 5,000 visitors a day
* 1,825,000 visitors a year
* a tennis court
* a bowling alley
* a movie theater
* a jogging track
* a swimming pool
* a putting green
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Ellipse and White House, early 20th century |
It is also one of the first government buildings in Washington that was made wheelchair-accessible, with modifications having been made during the presidency of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who needed to use a wheelchair as a result of his
polio. In the 1990s
Hillary Rodham Clinton, at the suggestion of Visitors Office Director Melinda N. Bates, approved the addition of a ramp in the East Wing corridor. It allowed easy wheelchair access for the public tours and special events that enter through the secure entrance building on the east side. In 1948, President
Harry S. Truman added a much-discussed balcony to the South Portico at the second-floor level. Not long after the balcony was constructed, the building was found to be structurally unsound, and in imminent danger of collapse. President Truman and family moved to
Blair House across the street while the White House was renovated. The old interior was dismantled, leaving the house as a shell. It was then rebuilt using concrete and steel beams in place of its original wooden joists. Some modifications were made, with the largest being the repositioning of the grand staircase to open into the Entrance Hall, rather than the Cross Hall, as was the case previously. President Truman and family moved back into the White House on
March 27 1952.
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19th century photo of the Red Room. |
Though the structural integrity of the building had been corrected in the late 1940s and early 1950s by total gutting and reconstruction of the interior, as a result of decades of poor maintenance and then the process of its removal and reinstatement, the interior had been allowed to deteriorate.
Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of President
John F. Kennedy (1961–63), remodeled the interior of many rooms with decors inspired by its early nineteenth-century appearance, often using high-quality furniture that had been put in storage in the basements and forgotten about. Many of the antiques, fine paintings, and other improvements of the Kennedy period were given to the White House by rich donors, including
Jane Engelhard,
Jayne Wrightsman, the
Oppenheimer family of
South Africa, and other moneyed individuals. The Kennedy decor, much admired then as now, had an imperial
Francophile air that was the result of the decorator
Stephane Boudin of
Jansen, the eminent Paris design company that had planned and/or executed decors for the royal families of
Belgium and
Iran, the
Duchess of Windsor, and
Nazi Germany's
Reichsbank. The rooms that had a more early American appearance were decorated by Boudin but heavily influenced by the millionaire museum founder
Henry Francis du Pont.
Since then, every presidential family has made changes to the decor of the White House, some subtle, others more profound and controversial. In the 1990s, for example, President and Mrs. Clinton had some of the rooms recast by
Arkansas decorator
Kaki Hockersmith. And more recently, on February 7, 2006, it was announced that the White House is to be remodeled in June of 2008.
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The West Wing of the White House, in the foreground. |
In the early 20th century, new buildings were added to the wings 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
Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
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. Rosalynn Carter, in 1977, was the first to place her personal office in the East Wing and to formally call it the "Office of the First Lady." The East Wing was built during
World War II in order to hide the construction of an underground bunker to be used in emergency situations. The bunker has come to be known as the
Presidential Emergency Operations Center |
The White House and surrounding area as seen from the Washington Monument |
Although the White House grounds have had many gardeners through their history, the current layout was designed in 1935 by
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. of the
Olmsted Brothers firm, under commission from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
On the weekend of
June 23,
2006, one of the 140 year-old
elm trees on the north side of the building, came down in a rainy and windy storm. This elm is depicted on the right side on the back of the
$20 bill. This tree was believed to have been planted between 1902 and 1906 during Theodore Roosevelt's administration.
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 the sidewalk 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. These tours were suspended in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001. 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.
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Pennsylvania Avenue is now closed to all traffic, except government officials. |
The Pennsylvania Avenue closing, in particular, has been
opposed by organized civic groups in Washington, D.C. They argue that the closing impedes traffic flow unnecessarily and is inconsistent with the well-conceived historic plan for the city. 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 has undergone a great deal of structural strengthening in the not too distant past.
The official White House website is http://www.whitehouse.gov/. It was established on
October 17,
1994 by President Clinton's Administration.
This website used a very lengthy
robots exclusion file to shield much of its contents from
search engines (http://www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt).
As of early June 2005, the list contains over 2,200 directories. A visitor may still use the
official search tool to retrieve information. However, the searchable contents are controlled by the U.S. government. In most cases, the blocked files appear to be intended for embedding, and their content can be reached through other URLs.
(Although it is claimed no personal information is gathered by the White House by your visit,
WebTrends, Inc. is possibly collecting information with the use of a
null picture. This can be seen in reviewing the source code of any of the webpages found under the whitehouse.gov domain.[
3])
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Western White House*
Number One Observatory Circle, the residence of the
Vice President.
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White House Communications Agency*
White House Situation Room*
White House Fellows*
The West Wing*
List of official residences*
List of U.S. Presidential residences*
White House, Moscow, government building in Moscow
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:Category:Rooms in the White House*
WikiSatellite view of White House at WikiMapia*
WhiteHouse.gov, official White House website (source of much information in this article)
*
Note: Before the White House had an official Internet presence, others registered the
Whitehouse.org and
Whitehouse.com domains. These are not official White House websites. WhiteHouse.org is a parody website, and while WhiteHouse.com was once a pornography site, it is now an e-commerce directory.
*
President's Park NPS Site*
White House Photo Collections*
White House Briefing - Dan Froomkin, Washington Post. Contains information on who's who and where.
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History: The White House Spanish
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Presidents Weekly Address*
WhiteHouseMuseum.org - A detailed online tour of the White House
Robots.txt
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The Inquirer - The White House site's use of
robots.txt*
www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt - The actual robots.txt
