Donald Trump’s decision to demolish the East Wing of the White House, along with his, ahem, questionable decorating choices within the Oval Office, have left Americans with working eyesight and good taste astonished and appalled. Trump’s shrinking cadre of defenders have replied by bringing up the Truman reconstruction, secret tunnels, and even President Obama’s rather benign partial conversion of the tennis court (far removed from the actual buildings) into a basketball court. Much of what they share is, at best, incomplete. Some of it is flat-out misinformation.
Let’s review the history of the White
House. The President’s House, as it was
then called, was constructed between 1792-1800. The builders were a combination
of enslaved African-Americans (who quarried the stone used for the
construction) and employed whites. The
structure was built to the finest standards for American private residences at
the time. But it was deliberately
designed to be modest compared to the residences that heads of state occupied
in nations like Britain and France. This modesty pertained not just to size,
but to design. The décor was simply dignified rather than ostentatious – a
reminder that the new nation was neither a monarchy nor particularly wealthy.
By the time the building was inhabited, George
Washington was already dead. John Adams
was the first President to inhabit the home, and only for the final year of his
presidency.
Even before the White House was constructed,
several exterior structures were built, including outhouses for the
construction crew and, eventually, the first family and others who spent time
at the White House. Under Thomas
Jefferson, colonnades were built on the east and west ends of the mansion.
British troops invaded the
Capital in 1814 and burned the White House.
First Lady Dolly Madison, aware the troops were on the way, famously
removed many of the home’s possessions –
including artwork and furniture. Then
she laid out a feast for the approaching troops giving the first family and
staff time to escape. The British
enjoyed the feast, then set the mansion ablaze.
The building’s internal structure was essentially destroyed with only
the four exterior walls left standing. As
with the original construction, cost was a factor when the house was rebuilt. The original wooden beams and joints were
visually inspected for fire damage and approved or rejected for reuse. But the engineers of the time lacked both the
knowledge and the technology to make an accurate determination as to which
pieces were fit for reuse. They were
unaware that even without burning, the extreme heat caused by the fire could
compromise the material’s integrity.
Over the next century, the building and
grounds were renovated numerous times. Several
greenhouses were built at various locations. In the mansion itself, holes were drilled into
the wooden supports to create conduits for indoor plumbing, gas lines, and
electric wiring. These invasions caused
further stress on the structure.
Other structures were intended as permanent
additions – and these were submitted for design review and were rightly paid
for with public funds (the use of private funds would have raised accusations
of robber barons trying to curry favor with the increasingly powerful Federal
government).
Theodore Roosevelt’s creation of the West Wing
was the most significant addition to the complex up to that time – though it
should be pointed out that this change didn’t affect the original building
itself. Neither did Roosevelt’s creation
of the first part of the East Wing.
It was Calvin Coolidge’s project to add a
third floor to the White House in 1927 which sealed the building’s fate. For the next two decades, groans and cracking
sounds could be heard from within the walls, leading the gullible to believe
that the building was inhabited by ghosts.
The West Wing was destroyed by a fire in 1929
and hastily rebuilt. In 1934, Franklin
Roosevelt had the West Wing rebuilt to accommodate the growing administration. He also collaborated with famed architect Eric
Gugler, creating a new Oval Office which has been
used by Presidents ever since. Many of
the details remained visible nine decades later: built-in bookcases; hidden
doors as well as doors topped with robust pediments; the Presidential seal on
the ceiling; the subtle, recessed lighting.
That is, until 2025, when Donald Trump began festooning the room with
gaudy accoutrements.
In 1942, Roosevelt – with Congressional
approval – expanded the East Wing. Part
of this was to conceal wartime tunnels which connected the White House to a
bunker underneath the treasury department.
It’s worth remembering that from the time the US entered World War II
until the day FDR died, a gas mask was strapped to his wheelchair.
As ambitious as their expansions were, both Franklin
and Eleanor Roosevelt knew the main building was having troubles. But they felt little could be done due to the
constraints of the Great Depression and World War II.
Shortly after taking office, Harry Truman
noticed significant issues. As recounted
in Robert Klara’s superb “The Hidden White House,” whenever White House butler
Alonzo Fields, who stood over six feet tall and was strongly built, walked in
the Yellow Oval Room on the second floor, the floorboards would creak and the
chandelier in the Blue Oval Room below would sway as its crystals made a
tinkling sound. The floor in another
room was beginning to tilt. Truman’s bathtub was starting to sink into the
floor. When a leg of Margaret Truman’s
piano crashed through the ceiling of the floor below, Truman knew action had to
be taken. A team of engineers was
hired. They looked behind the walls,
under the floors, above the ceilings and delivered their verdict: the building
was standing only from “force of habit” and was in danger of imminent collapse.
The Truman family moved to Blair House across the street for the duration.
Congress was notified about the situation, and
although some Republicans tried to use the issue for partisan gain, most were
supportive of Truman’s desire to save the building. Congress proposed what was the least
expensive solution: tear the building down and replace the whole thing. Truman, who despite his plain-spoken and
occasionally profane manner was well-read in history, would have none of
that. He insisted that, no matter the
cost, the look of the original White House be preserved. To do that, engineers found a way to shore up
the four outer walls while removing everything within those walls. Equipment for demolition, excavation, and
reconstruction was disassembled, the parts brought in through doors and windows,
then reconstructed once inside. Furniture
was removed and stored off-site, the original interior was dismantled with
parts labeled and numbered, and what was left was demolished. Two sub-basements were excavated (partly for
support services, partly for security in case of nuclear attack), a new steel
frame was built, and the rooms were rebuilt largely based on the original
plans. Through the entire three-year
project, Coolidge’s third floor was held in place by steel supports. The Truman Reconstruction was the first
significant building restoration in the history of the United States. It was far from perfect, mostly because
Truman ran out of money before the project was complete. A decade after Truman
returned to the rebuilt White House in 1952, First Lady Jackie Kennedy
remarked that much of the décor looked like something out of a Sheraton
hotel. It was she who brought timeless
elegance to the building.
Other Presidents have made smaller changes to
the White House – mostly a matter of décor.
Presidential families are free to decorate the residence (the top two
floors of the building) as they see fit.
Under George W. Bush, Congress approved a major modernization of the
White House, which was carried out during the Obama administration. Obama also added a basketball hoop to the
tennis court and painted the appropriate lines – which is recently causing
consternation even though Obama has been out of office for over eight
years. I wonder why…
This past week, Donald Trump had the entire
East Wing torn down to create a vast, vulgar, gilded ballroom. The welcome center, colonnade, the famed
movie theatre, and First Lady’s offices are all gone. Neither Congress nor the National Park System
were consulted – technically a violation of law since the White House complex
is part of the park system and federal property. Who is paying for this: corporations wanting
to curry favor with the Trump administration.
Teddy Roosevelt’s nightmare has come to life.
What about those doing the actual demolition
and construction? Have they been
properly vetted by the FBI and/or Secret Service? Who knows what could be hidden within the walls
of the upcoming grandiose monstrosity.
I can’t think of any past president, of any
party, who would approve of what has happened to the White House over the last
few weeks. But Republicans nationwide
are largely looking the other way. I’m
old enough to remember than despite their deep political disagreements during
the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill would
regularly get together to have drinks, swap stories, and share a few
laughs. During one such conversation,
the Republican President and the Democratic Speaker commiserated on the loss of
historical architecture and its replacement with “ugly” modern buildings. That conversation led to the Rehabilitation Tax
Credit, which has made possible the renovation and reuse of many older
buildings.
Unlike Reagan, Donald Trump has no respect for
historical architecture. He famously
destroyed several friezes from the 1929 Bonwit Teller building to build Trump
Tower after he said he would preserve them and donate them to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. He destroyed Jackie Kennedy’s Rose Garden for a tacky concrete
patio. Now he’s destroyed the East Wing after he said he wouldn’t. This level
of contempt for simple beauty is unique in our nation’s history.
Every previous change to the White House was
to enhance or add to the existing sight, respecting the original while
increasing functionality to account for modernization and the growth of both
our nation and the Presidency. There was
nothing “wrong” with the East Wing to justify its demolition.
I believe Trump’s more vociferous supporters
will stand by anything he does. He could
bomb the White House and they would come up with an excuse to rationalize his
every action. Then there are those who
simply lack the respect for our nation’s history and the simple good taste to
comprehend that Trump’s gaudy, gilded, bloated addition is the definition of
tacky.
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