One of the most-recognized buildings in Washington, D.C. among the nations of the world, besides the Capitol Building, is the White House, which has been home to every president except George Washington, who laid the cornerstone after donating the land for the city that bears his name.
While he was president, Trump reportedly told members of his New Jersey golf club that he spent so much time away from Washington because the White House is a “real dump.”
The White House denied this statement, though, in truth, the assessment was not entirely wrong. Toward the end of his presidency, a major renovation of the West Wing got underway as Trump decamped for 17 days to his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, on what he insisted was not a vacation.
The executive mansion has been through countless makeovers and technological upgrades in an effort to address 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’s various technological shortcomings.
When the Madisons moved in, the Executive Mansion was still incomplete and had no windows. Dolley complained about the mosquitos and used the East Room to hang laundry to dry in the hot, humid city. When the British burned the building during the War of 1812, only the external walls remained intact. Only a heavy rainstorm prevented the entire structure from being destroyed. By 1817, the building had been rebuilt. Key portions of the scorched wooden structure were re-used, however.
The South Portico was added in 1824, followed by the North Portico in 1829. The West Wing and Oval Office were added in 1902. Under Franklin Delano Roosevelt an East Wing would be added with the primary mission of concealing an underground bunker now known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. Since then, the East Wing has generally served as office space for the First Lady and her staff.
Eventually those high-tech additions - from running water to air conditioning - became such a combustible hodgepodge that President Harry Truman ordered a “Rehab Addict”-style gut job that would have been must-see TV had HGTV been around then.
The White House retrofitting began almost as soon as the place was built. Take the plumbing system.
John Quincy Adams was the first to bring pumped water to the White House in the late 1820s, but it was only to water his garden surrounding the Executive Mansion. His successor, Andrew Jackson, was the first to get potable, running water indoors, in 1833, a “bathing room” was added soon after.
Millard Fillmore is credited with installing the first flush toilets in 1853. But his successor, Franklin Pierce, built the first modern bathroom. (Which, by the cruelties of history, may now be regarded as Pierce’s most notable achievement.)
The first gravity hot-air heating system in the White House coincided with the first death of a sitting president, in 1841. It is unclear whether William Henry Harrison’s 30-day presidency and demise from pneumonia spurred the decision to warm up the place. Subsequent presidents, particularly James Polk, installed additional furnaces and plaster ductwork to heat most of the White House’s rooms. (They also avoided giving two-hour inauguration speeches in the freezing cold without wearing a coat). But a modern central heating system was not installed for decades.
In 1877, the first White House telephone arrived but did not get a spot in the president’s office. It was installed down the hall in the telegraph room, less than a year after Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone prototype.
Rutherford B. Hayes was president. The Providence Journal reported on his first call.
It was not a conference call. Hayes had just one number to remember: the Treasury Department, since it was the only other place in Washington connected to the telephone wire. If nobody was there and the Treasury Department wanted to call Hayes back, they dialed the White House number.
Presidents did not get a telephone on the desk of the Oval Office until Herbert Hoover in 1929.
Navy engineers built America’s first air-conditioning system in a desperate attempt to save President James Garfield’s life. Garfield was actually on his way to escaping the heat and humidity of Washington when he was shot by an assassin in a train station on July 2, 1881. In her book Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, Candice Millard describes a contraption comprising a fan pumping air through screens of cheesecloth bathed in ice water. The cooled air was then piped into Garfield’s room, bringing the temperature down to about 80 degrees. Garfield died anyway.
Other presidents tried to stay cool by putting up awnings, and even sleeping on the roof.
When electricity was installed in the White House in 1891, then-President Benjamin Harrison was so afraid of being shocked that he refused to touch the circular switches controlling the current in each room. Gas lighting was still used in conjunction with electric for some time.
In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt engaged architect Charles F. McKim of McKim, Mead, and White for a major renovation. In addition to adding a "temporary" West Wing and upgrading interior finishes, the work included adding bathrooms, removing the west stair, expanding the second floor West Sitting Hall, and expanding the State Dining Room. This involved removing a load-bearing wall which had supported the floor and walls above and then hanging them from the existing attic (later Third Floor) and roof structure.
In 1927, President Coolidge engaged architect William Delano to design and add a concrete and steel Third Floor under a rebuilt roof. The original roof and attic floor were supported only on the heavy exterior walls. This renovation transferred much of their weight onto the interior walls which by 1948 began to fail. Bathrooms added to this new floor were outfitted with second-hand pipes that over the following years leaked and caused water damage on the floors below.
Chester Arthur, successor to the assassinated James Garfield, set out to add a staunchly Victorian flair to the White House after he took office.
By the late 1940s, the White House was standing only by force of habit. The whole structure creaked and popped under the weight of 140 years’ worth of additions. Wiring, plumbing and ventilation ducts from various eras wound chaotically through the crumbling building. In a 1946 letter to his wife, Truman wrote that the place was surely haunted.
In 1949, Truman and the first family moved across the street to Blair House, and then everything but the exterior walls of the White House was completely demolished. A frenetic, three-year reconstruction ensued - this time, with modern electric wiring, phone lines and central heating and air conditioning added. The basement floors were dug, and steel girders put in to support the structure.
He invited TV reporters in for a tour, showing off the renovation.
More than 30 million people tuned in to watch.
At one point, a reporter asked about the White House clocks: Do they all run?
“Yes, they all run,” the president said. “We have a special man who winds clocks every Friday."
Since that time, attempts to provide a sense of past history of the Presidents House and new research have resulted in decorative interior changes, especially during the Kennedy years, but no substantive architectural work. The preservation of the historic house and its contents has received high priority. Beginning in 1978, a study was begun to assess problems with the exterior paint.
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