White House

:"1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" redirects here. For the musical, see 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (musical).

Structure

Very 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:

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• 6 stories and 55,000 ft² (5,100 m²) of floor space
• 132 rooms and 35 bathrooms http://www.worldstrides.com/sitesandsnapshots/dc_sites/whitehouse.asp
• 412 doors
• 147 windows
• 28 fireplaces
• 8 staircases
• 3 elevators
• 5 full-time chefs
• 5,000 visitors a day
• a tennis court
• a bowling lane
• a movie theater
• a jogging track
• a swimming pool

It is also one of the few government buildings in Washington that is wheelchair-accessible, with modifications having been made during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who needed to use a wheelchair as a result of polio. 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.

Related Topics:
Franklin D. Roosevelt - Polio - Harry S. Truman - Blair House

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Though the structural integrity of the building had been corrected in the late 1940's and early 1950's, the interior, as a result of decades of poor maintenance and then the process of removal and reinstatement, had been allowed to deteriorate. Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of President John F. Kennedy (1961–3), 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 monied individuals. The Kennedy decor, much admired then as now, had an imperial 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.

Related Topics:
Jacqueline Kennedy - John F. Kennedy - Jane Engelhard - Jayne Wrightsman - Oppenheimer - South Africa - Stephane Boudin - Jansen - Belgium - Iran - Duchess of Windsor - Nazi - Germany - Reichsbank - Henry Francis du Pont

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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; the result, though presumably inspired by the Kennedy years, was unveiled to general derision.

Related Topics:
Arkansas - Kaki Hockersmith

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