The White House: Everything You Need to Know About the US Presidents Residence
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George Washington, the hero of the American Revolutionary War, agreed to preside over this convention when it met in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787. The White House is one of the most recognizable structures in the world and is home to United States' elected president. Its construction started in 1792, and its location was chosen by the country's first president, President George Washington, the previous year. A series of designs for the structure were submitted, and Washington selected the one created by Irish-American architect James Hoban.
The White House Building
According to the state, at a 2015 meeting with Trump and Cohen, Pecker said he’d be the eyes and ears for the campaign, looking for negative Trump stories and alerting Cohen. Prosecutors say this was the genesis of the payoffs to Daniels as well as Playboy model Karen McDougal, who also claimed to have had an affair with Trump, which the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee has also denied. After all, the backdrop of the prosecution's case is the alleged “catch and kill” plot to suppress negative information about Trump as he ran for president in 2016.
Presidents of the United States, in order
After his calls at the White House door went unanswered, Dickens let himself in and walked through the mansion from room to room on the lower and upper floors. Finally coming upon a room filled with nearly two dozen people, he was shocked and appalled to see many of them spitting on the carpet. Dickens later wrote, “I take it for granted the Presidential housemaids have high wages.” Until the Civil War, however, most White House servants were enslaved people.
George McClellan replaces Winfield Scott
Washington DC was designed and created to be the nation’s capital and not be beholden to, or provide a special advantage to, any state. Inside this new city, a residence was created to be the seat of the executive branch and serve as the living quarters and office of the chief executive. The Madisons eventually moved into the nearby Octagon House, the Washington mansion of John Tayloe, a Virginia plantation owner. Reconstruction and expansion began under Hoban’s direction, but the building was not ready for occupancy until 1817, during the administration of Pres. Hoban’s reconstruction included the addition of east and west terraces on the main building’s flanks; a semicircular south portico and a colonnaded north portico were added in the 1820s. In 1805, upon winning re-election, Thomas Jefferson held the first Inauguration open house at the White House, allowing the public to enter.
The building’s history begins in 1792, when a public competition was held to choose a design for a presidential residence in the new capital city of Washington. The structure was to have three floors and more than 100 rooms and would be built in sandstone imported from quarries along Aquia Creek in Virginia. Labourers, including local enslaved people, were housed in temporary huts built on the north side of the premises.
Early maps referred to the White House as the “President’s Palace,” but in 1810, the building was officially named “Executive Mansion” in order to avoid any connection to royalty. The residence has also been called “President’s House,” or “President’s Mansion.” In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt changed the official name to “White House,” a moniker that had been used throughout the 19th century. 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. During the Kennedy administration, Rachel Lambert “Bunny” Mellon redesigned the White House gardens, including the famed Rose Garden outside the West Wing.
Until the 1900s, the vice president actually lived at his private residence, which was not unexpected due to the few duties of the position. Until the 1920s, for instance, vice presidents were not even invited to attend Cabinet meetings. Only in 1974 did Congress decide to make the Naval Observatory, a residence built in 1893 for the superintendent of US Naval Operations (USNO), the residence of the vice president. However, only in 1977 did Vice President Walter Mondale (under President Jimmy Carter) use the Naval Observatory as a primary residence for the first time. The ground floor of the Executive Mansion is used for events and is “public space.” The second and third floors are the executive residence, where the president lives with their family. In 1927, the attic of the Executive Mansion was expanded and became its third floor.
Donald Trump (2017–
Throughout much of Harry S. Truman's presidency, the interior of the house, with the exception of the third floor, was completely gutted and renovated while the Trumans lived at Blair House, right across Pennsylvania Avenue. Nonetheless, the exterior stone walls are those first put in place when the White House was constructed two centuries ago. Ever since Theodore Roosevelt moved his workspace from the residence to the newly built West Wing in 1902, the two-story West Wing has been home to the U.S. presidential offices.
Nancy Reagan said living in the White House was like living in a fancy hotel.
At the time, Washington DC was considered the geographic epicenter of the United States, though this would change during the lengthy era of Westward Expansion. The plans included the location for the future White House, the Capitol to house Congress, and the National Mall. President John Adams was born on October 30, 1735, in their family farm located in Braintree (present-day Quincy) Massachusetts to John Adams Senior and Susanna Boylston Adams.
Moreover, the wages of all White House employees—as well as the expenses for running the White House, including staging official functions—were paid for by the president. Not until 1909 did Congress provide appropriations to pay White House servants. Over the years, the executive mansion has seen multiple renovations, including extensive work by Theodore Roosevelt in 1902, which included the installation of electric lights.
The East Garden, also redesigned by Mellon, was later named in honor of Jacqueline Kennedy. First lady Michelle Obama added a 1,100-square-foot vegetable garden on the south grounds in 2009. Each president adds their own personal style to the workspace, choosing artwork from the White House collection or borrowing from museums.
In the 1796 elections, John Adams won over Thomas Jefferson, and he became the second president of the United States. The president said on Wednesday that "this is a historical moment," adding that "America stands with our friends, we stand up against dictators, we bow to no one, to no one — certainly not Vladimir Putin." Here's what presidents and first family members have said about what it's like to live in the White House. Construction of the Oval Office -- the president’s work quarters -- took place in 1909 when Howard Taft was president as part of a project to expand the executive wing.
In addition to the Oval Office, the West Wing complex includes the Situation Room, Cabinet Room, Roosevelt Room and press briefing room, among others. The first guards served as tour guides during the day, and only in 1830 were the first formal guards stationed outside the mansion during public events. In 1837, the White House finally received its first full-time guard, with multiple guards only becoming standard in the 1840s. Security expanded considerably during the US Civil War ( ) but relaxed afterward. Not until the 1890s did security begin to seal off open access to the White House grounds. A sentry box, or security guard post, was added in 1894 for the first time.
Then, Britain struck back the following year with an invasion of America’s coast. Although Adams was the first president to live in the White House, his stay only lasted for five months. He lost the re-election to Thomas Jefferson, and he vacated the President's House before the new president was sworn in. Mr. Biden addressed the lack of border security provisions within the package, saying that the bipartisan agreement "should have been included in this bill," while pledging to "get it done for the American people." However, some politicians criticized the move, calling it an expensive attempt to ruin the look of the White House. In the end, the cost of the renovation was taken out of the existing presidential household budget, according to the White House Historical Association.
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