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Although the name “White House” was commonly used from about the same time (because the mansion’s white-gray sandstone contrasted strikingly with the red brick of nearby buildings), it did not become the official name of the building until 1901, when it was adopted by Pres. In October 1792, construction began on the president’s house, which was set on an 82-acre preserve. Although Washington DC designer Pierre Charles L’Enfant designed the president’s house, architect James Hoban finalized a more conservative design. Hoban had won a competition among nine submissions to design the White House, receiving a gold medal. George Washington himself selected the exact site of the house within the city, symbolically choosing a spot near where the Capitol would be. The first president to live in the White House was John Adams, the second president and first vice president (serving under George Washington), whose family took up residence in 1800.
Inside the 18th-century contest to build the White House
Located at the country’s most well-known address, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave in Washington, DC, the White House is America’s most iconic home. The official residence and office of the president of the United States, the White House has been the home of every president since John Adams and the site of some of the most important events in American history. The practice continued until 1885, when newly elected Grover Cleveland arranged for a presidential review of the troops from a grandstand in front of the White House instead of the traditional open house. President Bill Clinton briefly revived the New Year's Day open house in his first term. The wallpaper had hung previously on the walls of another mansion until 1961 when that house was demolished for a grocery store. Just before the demolition, the wallpaper was salvaged and sold to the White House.
The White House Building
With structural problems mounting from the 1902 installation of floor-bearing steel beams, most of the building’s interior was stripped bare as a new concrete foundation went in place. The Trumans helped redesign most of the state rooms and decorate the second and third floors, and the president proudly displayed the results during a televised tour of the completed house in 1952. Not long after the inauguration of President George Washington in 1789, plans to build an official President’s House in a federal district along the Potomac River took shape. A contest to find a builder produced a winning design from Irish-born architect James Hoban, who modeled his building after an Anglo-Irish villa in Dublin called the Leinster House. When the Adamses moved in, the biggest room on the first floor, or State Floor, was the unfinished East Room, which occupied the entire east end of the building and was intended as an audience room for public events. An unfinished oval room (what is now the Blue Room) was at the center of the plan to facilitate public receptions where guests traditionally stood in a circlewaiting to greet the president.
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Jefferson appointed architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe as the surveyor of public buildings in 1803 and put him in charge of any improvements to the President’s House. Latrobe, born in England to an American mother and an English father, had practiced in the United States for seven years. They shared an intense interest in architecture, science, invention, philosophy, and religion. U.S. presidents may have yet to turn down living in the White House, but governors all over the country have backed off living in governor's mansions, for a variety of reasons (often because it's not really home). The governor of New York (Andrew Cuomo) is just one of many chief executives not living in their state's big house.
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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. The East Garden, also redesigned by Mellon, was later named in honor of Jacqueline Kennedy.
In the spring, the supporting timbers were removed and the stone arch toppled to the ground. The ruins were quietly taken away, leaving a vacant space and an East Wing with two parts for many years. Four stonecutters threatened Hoban, and he asked the constable for protection. Vice became a concern as the hardworking men reveled in gambling and drunkenness. When Betsy Donohue, the wife of one of the carpenters, opened a house of“riotous and disorderly” conduct, she was fined but by no means shut down. Her house, which was owned by Hoban, was moved and reopened off the public land.
However, the first president George Washington did not live in the White House. The entire city of Washington DC did not exist in 1789, when Washington took office. Unlike most nations, the United States specifically created a federal city that existed independently, outside of any state, to be the national capital.
Later, the closure was extended an additional block to the east to 15th Street, and East Executive Avenue, a small street between the White House and the Treasury Building. In June 2023, fighter jets moved to intercept a light aircraft that violated Washington DC airspace near the White House, before it crashed in Virginia.[108] All occupants in the intrusion aircraft were killed. The White House was first opened to the public during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency in 1805. It happened because many who attended the swearing-in ceremony at the US Capitol simply followed him home, where he then greeted them in the Blue Room. Scars from the 1814 fire appeared 176 years later, in 1990, when white paint was removed from the walls in the course of restoration.
John Adams' short White House stay
The creek was navigable from a quarry dock up to a wharf near the building site. The building material was sandstone (called “freestone” because it was so easy to quarry), which was porous and susceptible to cracking in freezing weather. 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. When they got little response, they instead enlisted the labor of both free and enslaved African Americans to work alongside local white laborers and craftsmen, plus a handful of Europeans to build not just the president's home, but other government buildings such as the U.S. The vice president’s offices are in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB), built on the White House grounds between 1871 and 1888.
It also passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, intended to frighten foreign agents out of the country and to stifle the attacks of Republican editors. Each president adds their own personal style to the workspace, choosing artwork from the White House collection or borrowing from museums. Six desks have been used in the Oval Office, the most famous of which is the Resolute desk. Made of wood from the HMS Resolute, the desk is currently in use by President Biden.
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He continued with his master's studies in the office of James Putnam and earned his degree in 1758. The White House has seen several renovations and additions throughout the years, but its original stone walls still stand. Today, it has 132 rooms and 35 bathrooms that are spread on six levels (per White House.gov). All of the United States presidents lived in the White House, except for George Washington. He moved to the White House — then called the President's House — after living for months in a nearby hotel, according to History.
The Cabinet Room has a large mahogany table where the president can meet with his entire cabinet of 15 cabinet-level secretaries, such as the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Treasury, and Attorney General (Secretary of the Justice Department). The official workplace and the residence of the US president is the White House, which is located on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. The White House has been the residence of all the US presidents since John Adams in 1800 who was the second President of the nation. Following his triumphant victory against his competitor Thomas Jefferson, he moved into state house in 1800. The first President of the United States, George Washington, did not live in the White House because it had not been built to a livable state during his term. When President Harry S. Truman moved into the White House in 1945, he became concerned about the state of the building.
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. 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.
It housed George Washington, his family, and household staff, from April 23, 1789, to February 23, 1790, during New York City's two-year term as the national capital. Demolished in 1856, it stood at the northeast corner of what was Pearl and Cherry (today Dover) streets in what is now Civic Center, Manhattan, New York City. 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. Truman and his family lived in Blair House across the street during the renovations. Some people might wonder if the US vice president also lives at the White House.
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