Non-WH wedding

Houston Chronicle is reporting that Jenna and Henry will marry at the Crawford Ranch and not at the White House itself. The date is set for May 10, so plans must be well under way.

Open post: White House 6-11

Becky sent along this photo from oldpicture.com (the source of some good WH photos in the past) with the caption "White House at night, 6/11". I'm not sure if the bright glare is from fireworks or just from a streetlamp due to the long exposure or what.

UPDATE: Robert Martin sent a better image that he found in the LOC which includes the full date: 6/14/11, prepping for the Tafts' silver wedding anniversary party on June 19, 1911, which we know was lit up with search lights.

Two score electricians are now at work in the White House grounds, as thousands of electric lights will be placed among the trees and festooned across the lawns and terraces. The White House itself will be outlined completely by electric lights. No cornice, angle, or gable will be overlooked. On the west lawn of the White house an electric flag will wave. This will be a wonderful sight, the red, white, and blue colors flashing into the night.

The French...

Times Online is reporting that President of France Nicolas Sarkozy has secretly married supermodel Carla Bruni in the Elysee last week. It's hard to imagine such a thing happening in the White House (except maybe back in the days of President Hefner), but then there is a little church just across the park from the White House, where such things could be taken care of discreetly. One imagines the Elysee is surrounded by cheese shops and topless beaches.

Abe Lincoln, cultural icon

I have no explanation for this. I just think it's sort of interesting that Lincoln is the only president you'd see depicted this way.

Update: Except, of course, President Marshall.

Open post: Holiday wishes

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all!

Added a pic of the East Colonnade and the Rose Garden sent by Christopher Tolton and featuring a particularly treasured moment.

Open post: Lincoln on ice

ABC chose the statue of Lincoln outside the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, IL to illustrate the nasty weather in the Midwest. I wonder sometimes if George Washington had weather in mind when he chose the site for DC: a nice mix of four seasons without too much snow in the winter. The heat might have been more than he counted on tho, altho it can't be much different at Mount Vernon.

UPDATE: my own photo of an icy branch.

Open post: season's greetings

The president and first lady lit the tree on the Ellipse the other day, and—despite the cold—the president welcomed Santa Claus without mispronouncing his name.

Also, no Hanukkha photo op this year. We got a picture in the Visitors Foyer before, but maybe that will come later with a menorah lighting.

Christmas 2007

The White House has posted some Christmas decorations facts and received the tree.

UPDATE: Link to the first lady's remarks, with video.

The White House is missing! Ogling Dana Perino

WhiteHouse.gov seems to be giving me a 404 - File Not Found error today.... Wait, spoke too soon. I guess I caught them in the middle of a change.

Anyway, the Prime Minister of Japan visited the other day. It's amazing how they sneak these guys in and out. It's like you've got to watch the news to catch it or something. Maybe I get more of my news from The Daily Show than I'd like to admit.

On a side note, there still is no new WH video for the renovated Press Briefing Room, and we're two press secretaries behind now. Nor do we have any new pictures of the press secretary's office, even just during a press gaggle.

Sarkozy visit

The president of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, has arrived at the White House. With all the French furnishings, let's hope he doesn't ask for any of the furniture "back."

Open post: Nothing new

I went looking for new things to add to the site or to blog about and got off track looking at a political blog which distracted me with an old speech by Bill Clinton where he uses the phrase "Yore Kippur," so I went searching for it and found a small number of reliable sources that also used it but no explanation, so I put a note on the talk page of "Yom Kippur" article in Wikipedia.

Sometimes I hate the Internet.

OOPDATE: It's apparently just a typo, altho why it appeared in a presidential speech in multiple places, I don't know. You know who's responsible for this? Some schmendrick, I bet. Possibly a fakakta schmendrick.

Idle curiosity

Poking around the WH website, I came across a photo of Barney on the south lawn next to what is described as a "drainage ditch." I recognized this from the HABS collection as almost certainly the Andrew Jackson "milk trough" and felt superior for a moment before realizing that I have no idea what that is either.

WH in HD

Stephen M writes:

I have been watching C-Span's Presidential Libraries series. Tonight on the segment from President Truman's library, the moderator and Richard Norton Smith were discussing Mr. Truman's renovation and it was announced that a new White House program will be released in the Spring.

They are supposedly filming in HD at the White House currently, according to the moderator. They also said it would "show the White House like you've never seen before." We'll see about that I guess.

They said to keep watch for future information releases on the video, that it should be sometime after the primaries in the Spring.

Road trip: Lincoln Museum

Finding myself with some time on my hands and access to a fast car and plenty of Mountain Dew, I've decided to take a day trip to Springfield, IL tomorrow to see the Lincoln Museum.

Here is a portrait of Lincoln that I colorized a few weeks ago when I was bored.

Open post: mantelpieces

Feel free to comment on the history of mantels thruout the White House. (And feel free to spell it "mantle" if you like; I obviously thoroly approve of alternative spellings.)

White House wedding?

CNN is reporting that Jenna Bush plans to marry Henry Hagar Hager, heir to the Hagar Slacks fortune.* Chances are that the wedding will take place at the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine or maybe the Crawford ranch (especially if Wonkette is right), but there is the outside chance that we could see another wedding in the White House.

* I may have that wrong. Actually, he was Karl Rove's aide.

Happy dollar coin release day

Another dollar coin release day is upon us, and I have only just taken down my garlands and wreaths from the Adams coin release. This one is the Jefferson coin, a stately portrait of the first president to enjoy indoor plumbing. The ones I have all say "In God we trust," but Jefferson's really ought to be more noncommittal.

Open post: Abe Lincoln, mystery writer

Stumbled across this story by Abe Lincoln called "The Trailor Murder Mystery," which appeared in The Illinois Whig (the magazine of Whigs, by Whigs, and for Whigs) in 1846. As a murder mystery, it's no "Telltale Heart," but as a case-study of the actual Trailor case, for which Lincoln acted as defending attorney, it's pretty interesting.

Reading between the lines, I find a coerced confession ("They still plied him in every conceivable way...") and some sloppy police work (the search for the dead man did not include the man's own home). But I find it very interesting that in the old days town postmasters played an important role in law enforcement.

Open post: Nothing new

Busy weekend and training this week. Nothing new from the White House.

Shane pointed out this YouTube clip of the new Press Briefing Room.

Open post: PBR

Added a few more pics of the briefing room. Now that we've seen it, what are your reactions?

Another Hou Chron blog entry from Julie Mason.
Mark Silva's The Swamp blog entry.

Open post: Press room

Press Briefing Room and offices are apparently nearly finished. Perhaps Julie Mason will get us some pics!

Or maybe not.

Mrs. LBJ hospitalized

Lady Bird Johnson has been hospitalized. Best wishes to her and her family.

Open post: renovations

The Bushes have opened up some of the Truman-era architectural details hidden by the Kennedys in the second floor Central Hall. There are also plans for a Green Room redecoration.

Link to a preservation committee article.

Link to the Lincoln Bedroom redecoration article.

Open post: Secret staircase

In the previous post comments, visitor Chris wrote:

Hey, on an unrelated note, I have recently come into some information regarding a hidden staircase passage on the first floor.

Would you guys like to know where it is? I wasnt sure if that kind of thing is allowed here.

Yes! Assuming it is used by regular staff and not strictly by the Secret Service or something, I'm definitely interested. I'm aware of a basement mezzanine, eastward tunnel under the East Wing, and (I've suspected, at least) another small hidden staircase on the West side, but I don't have enough information about these to document them.

Open post: Kisses for My President

I noticed a post on a political blog about a presidential movie I'd never heard of: 1964's Kisses for My President, starring Fred MacMurray and Polly Bergen. Oh, I'm gonna have to check that one out. And, by the way, has anyone seen The Brady Bunch in the White House? We really need a review of that for the movies page.

Meanwhile, check out the "White House" tag on IMDB.

Open post: outgoing PM incoming

Hot on the heels of the queen (not to mention the Swedish PM), Tony Blair is visiting the White House. Considering how few photos we got of the queen's visit, I don't hold out hope for particularly unusual pictures of PM Blair—unless he's a secret smoker....

Open post: Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl...

Looked over the White House's page on the Queen's visit and noticed something odd:

This is Her Majesty's first visit to the United States in 16 years. Previous visits include the following:
- President George H.W. Bush and Mrs. Bush, State Dinner, on May 14, 1991
- President and Mrs. Reagan, California, March, 1983
- President and Mrs. Ford, State Dinner, July, 1976
- President and Mrs. Eisenhower, State Dinner, October, 1957

Politics aside, is it really possible that QE2 has visited only Republicans?

Open post: State Dining Room chairs

There are two sets of chairs in common use in the State Dining Room: a large set of gilt chairs with unusual spindle backs and a smaller set of upholstered mahogany Queen Anne-style chairs. I believe the Queen Anne chairs date from the 1902 renovation and the gilt chairs from the Kennedy administration, purchased after one of the old bent-wood chairs broke under JFK during a dinner, but I'm not sure.

Open post: The queen of England arrives

The White House will welcome Queen Elizabeth II—or, as President Bush calls her, Lizzy Deuce*—on Sunday for a state dinner. Prior to that she will have visited:

• Historic Jamestown—which, she may be surprised to discover, has changed very little since her last visit
• The Kentucky Derby—where her hat, while fancy, is unlikely to be the fanciest
  
• Wrestlemania Revenge in the Roanoke Civic Center**

On her way out, she plans to stop in Canada and pick up one of those 1 million dollar coins with her picture on it.***

* I totally made that up.
** Ibid.
*** Ibid.

Open post: Window sheers

Visitor Luke asks the question:

I have noticed that some rooms no longer have under-curtains/sheers at the windows. Why do you think this has been done?

My thought is that the various reasons for sheers have slowly gone away: privacy, limiting heat transfer, limiting UV penetration (which fades fabrics). Removing them makes the rooms seem more open, and provides better light and better views. And privacy isn't much of a concern in the public rooms.

Open post: White House as a stage for national mourning

The White House has begun serving as a kind of stage for national mourning, as it has many times in the past. It is at these times, I think, that it proves least capable of fulfilling its duty—especially now, when the Press Briefing Room is still being renovated and press conferences must be held in the East Room or outside, and the weather is not good enough to use the Rose Garden. There used to be inadequate facilities for monitoring breaking news, but I think the new Sit Room probably has remedied that.

Open post: Nothing new

Nothing new here. I had hoped to have a Clinton-era An Historic Guide waiting for me, but the Ebay seller is a bit slow. I just ordered the Gary Walters interview from C-SPAN and a White House music documentary called In Tune With History, which hopefully will have something new. I'm holding out for photos of Chester Arthur playing the banjo.

Open post: What this country needs....

After an e-mail exchange on the subject of Tade Styka's equestrian portrait of TR in the Roosevelt Room, it occurred to me that what this country needs is a dollar coin with TR's portrait. Was there ever a face better suited to the obverse of hard specie? I ask you, what face has this nation chosen to chisel in stone 60 feet high and yet not mounted on a minted round? And don't tell me he's already on the reverse of the South Dakota quarter. Theodore Roosevelt should not have to appear in the company of a ring-necked pheasant!

I know that he'll get his moment in a few years, but he'll be lumped in with McKinley, Taft, and Wilson, for pity's sake. Maybe TR's could be a two dollar coin. The man needs his own denomination! And for the reverse? A bull moose whacking a Spaniard with a big stick.

Open post: Truman Balcony

Dennis mentioned that William Seale dislikes the Truman Balcony—something I didn't know. I think it's eminently practical and a huge improvement over the ghastly old awnings, but in need of some dentil molding or something. Discuss.

Open post: Designing Camelot

Visitor Scott W suggested an open post on the topic of James Abbott and Elaine Rice's book Designing Camelot. I know I got a lot out of that book, not only on the subject of the Kennedy renovation, but also from the floor plans at the back. If only we had such a work on the other major renovations....

Update: Adding a page for resources, where I'll list this book and other books, periodicals, and videos recommended for anyone interested in the heritage of the White House.