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In 1800, when the home was almost finished, America's second president, John Adams and his wife Abigail moved in. Costing $232,372, the house was considerably smaller than the grand palace L'Enfant had envisioned. The Presidential palace was a stately but simple home made of pale gray sandstone. The porticoes on the north and south facades were added by another White House architect, the British-born Benjamin Henry Latrobe. The stately rounded portico (left side of this illustration) on the south side was originally designed with steps, but they were eliminated. Hoban had tried out a neoclassical design in Charleston, South Carolina, as he was finishing up the 1792 Charleston County Courthouse.
The President's Backyard
It was Jefferson who began to build the East and West Wings of the White House as service wings for a house growing in importance. Originally, plans for a "President's Palace" were developed by the French-born artist and engineer Pierre Charles L’Enfant. Working with George Washington to design a capital city for the new nation, L'Enfant envisioned a majestic home approximately four times the size of the present White House.
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Who was the first president to live in the White House?
In 1829, a horde of 20,000 Inaugural callers forced President Andrew Jackson to flee to the safety of a hotel while, on the lawn, aides filled washtubs with orange juice and whiskey to lure the mob out of the mud-tracked White House. President Jefferson’s design concepts partially survive through the galleries that connect the White House residence with the east and west wings. The galleries are used for domestic purposes and do not provide additional office space. Conservatories were built on the residence’s west side in the late 19th century. This floor, with 16 rooms, a main corridor, and 6 bathrooms, is the primary family residence. It contains the president’s and his family’s bedrooms, a private living room, as well as some rooms for close guests.
Building the White House
In fact, President Truman spent most of his term living elsewhere due to the major extent of the renovations undertaken. Jefferson planned an arched carriage gate, designed by Latrobe, at the center of the East Wing, but the work was delayed and the mortar would not set in the winter cold. In the spring, the supporting timbers were removed and the stone arch toppled to the ground.
The White House and its landscaped grounds occupy 18 acres (7.2 hectares). Since the administration of George Washington (1789–97), who occupied presidential residences in New York and Philadelphia, every American president has resided at the White House. Originally called the “President’s Palace” on early maps, the building was officially named the Executive Mansion in 1810 in order to avoid connotations of royalty. For two hundred years, the White House has stood as a symbol of the Presidency, the United States government, and the American people. As preparations began for the new federal city, a competition was held to find a builder of the "President's House." Nine proposals were submitted, and Irish-born architect James Hoban won a gold medal for his practical and handsome design.
James Hoban, an Irish immigrant and architect hand-picked by President George Washington, designed the original building. After the British set fire to it in 1814, during the War of 1812, Hoban led the effort to rebuild the structure. While most presidential work is done in the West Wing, the traditional view of the White House that many Americans hold, with the South Portico, is of the Executive Mansion. Although the exterior has remained similar since the completion of the North Portico in 1830, the mansion’s interior was totally renovated between 1948 and 1952 under President Harry S. Truman.
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He believed that the location would be the seed for a great capital city, the equal of Paris or London. Irish-born architect James Hoban modelled his plans on Leinster House in Dublin and won the competition for his practical and attractive design. Construction began immediately, with the neoclassical style building being built by enslaved people, labourers and stonemasons imported from Edinburgh, Scotland, between 1792 and 1800. When Chester A. Arthur took office in 1881, he ordered renovations to the White House to take place as soon as the recently widowed Lucretia Garfield moved out. The three-level southern façade combines Palladian and neoclassical architectural styles. The south portico was completed in 1824.[33] At the center of the southern façade is a neoclassical projected bow of three bays.
The Fillmores added a library in the second-floor oval room, while the Arthurs hired the famous decorator Louis Tiffany to decorate the east area dining rooms. 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. In 1948, after engineers discovered the building to be structurally unsound and unsafe for habitation, Harry S. Truman ordered a complete gutting of the interior and a total overhaul of the building's structure and foundation.
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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 West Wing office complex was built in 1902, allowing the president to move his office out of the executive residence to a more professional environment.
By 1790 New York State had built a house for the president and his family. Called Government House, the architecture exhibited the neoclassical elements of the day — pediments, columns, and simple grandeur. The first president's plan was to move the capital to a more central piece of real estate, and so Washington began surveying swampland near his Mount Vernon home in Virginia. Between 1790 and 1800 the government moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as it built the young nation's capital in Washington, D.C. Many an American president has battled for the privilege to live at the nation's most prestigious address.
The bow is flanked by five bays, the windows of which, as on the north façade, have alternating segmented and pointed pediments at first-floor level. The bow has a ground-floor double staircase leading to an Ionic colonnaded loggia and the Truman Balcony, built in 1946.[33] The more modern third floor is hidden by a balustraded parapet and plays no part in the composition of the façade. The Neoclassical design of the White House is based primarily on architectural concepts inherited from the Roman architect Vitruvius and the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio. Theodore Roosevelt removed the Victorian decor accumulated over the past 30 years and returned to its federal roots with some Georgian elements. The U.S. government didn't own slaves, according to the National Archives, but it did pay slave owners to hire them to help build the White House. According to the White House Historical Association, Washington, D.C.’s city commissioners originally planned to spirit workers from Europe for the construction, which started in 1792 and took eight years to complete.
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