The Lincoln White House

This diagram of the Lincoln second floor appears in Seale's two-volume WH book. It shows the old west stair as a dual initial rise and a central rise to the second floor. But we know from photographs of the grand stair that by the 1890s it was a single initial rise at the right, a left turn, then a single rise to the second floor.

However, I don't recall ever reading about that stair being renovated from dual to single. The question is, are we sure the dual rise stair was ever built? And when was it renovated to the single stair we see in the photos?

Capitol Visitor Center

The new Capitol Visitor Center opened the other day. I'm sure it's very nice, but what do the think the White House could do with $625 million in renovation funding? Add on 625 more balconies? Give the press corps a cafeteria? The mind boggles.

Redecoration speculation

Fox News has an article on moving into the White House. It's a follow-up to their piece about White House food.

The AP has something on first lady transition tours.

Very grumpy article from The Scotsman on how darn much presidents and prime ministers spend redecorating to make things "homely". (British pound conversion: double it and add thirty.*)

The Californian has an article with some juicy cost details I haven't seen before in the right sidebar.

* I may have that wrong.

1902 floor plans

Patrick sent me some really fantastic images of White House floor plans from the 1902 Report of the Architects created by McKim, Mead, and White. They nicely fill in some holes and are so detailed that the original versions (click the hi-def links in the caption credits) could be used to build your very own vintage White House mansion, complete with giant steam boiler. Decorate to taste.

White House overview

Pete pointed me to this pic of President's Park on Picasa showing shadowy shapes on the east and west where work on the wings is proceeding, so I cleared up its cloudiness to clarify the clues.

Grand staircase decorations

Ndkott (and JFK) wonders about the nature of the designs around the grand staircase. I think they are emblems of each of the original 13 states, but I'm not sure. Any better answers?

Gizmodo hating on Laura

Gizmodo takes exception to the Bush 2 renovation of the Family Theater in a new article using the Architectural Digest photos.

Soldiers' Home opening

After a $15 million renovation, the Old Soldiers' Home presidential retreat beloved by the Lincolns is set to reopen tomorrow (for tourists, not soldiers). Apparently, it took a lot to get the old soldiers out.

• CBS News
• Washington Times
  

Got it!

I got a copy (two, actually) of AD at O'Hare while traveling today. The photos are beautiful, altho I wish we'd seen one or two of the private rooms (even the Family Kitchen!). The Green Room looks great and the Lincoln Bedroom is marvelous, but the Queens' Bedroom is as frumpy as ever. You'd think that first families would be more adventurous with the lesser known guest room. The Vermeil Room is somehow still boring, despite the goldware. It's nice to see the Palm Room, tho.

Also, I must say, the Porsche advertising insert was very persuasive. It fairly convinced me that I want a Porsche. But what is with that ad on page 35? Are they selling Isabella Rosselini? As much as I admire her beauty and talent, I won't be a part of the illicit film star trade.

Architectural Digest

I still haven't had a chance to pick up the new Architectural Digest with pics of the Bush redecoration. I've looked for it locally, but couldn't find it. I didn't want to go all the way to Barnes & Noble or Borders because I knew I'd be passing thru O'Hare airport Monday and it would certainly be there. Cue the severe weather flight delays.... and I had to rush to catch my connection.

This week I'm in Sacramento. Surely these people are civilized. The weather certainly is.

White House whispers

An anonymous tip pointed me in the direction of Duron paint as the source of the White House's "whisper white" exterior paint. This enabled me to dig up a couple of old articles and prompted me to change the answer to the question asked some time ago about it.

White House budget

Several days ago, visitor John M wrote:

In the Kennedy's time the appropriation for an incoming First Family's redecoration was $50,000. What is it now and what are they entitled to change without a governing groups approval? Does this amount include changes in the Oval Office?

I tried doing some research and didn't get very far. I know the WH budget is about $8 million these days, but I think that's the operating budget and may not include redecoration and repairs.

In DC

Made it to DC and went down to the White House before sunset and shot some pics (see What's New). For some reason, there were terns flocking all over on the south side. Maybe the chefs ruined a big fish dinner and tossed the evidence out on the tennis court. White-soled shoes only, birds!

I also went around on the south side and shot the new structure there. It looks temporary to me, but certainly very solid. Perhaps it's meant to cover some extensive below-grade expansion about to begin. I also noticed some earth-moving equipment hidden in the trees on the east side, but I think there has been some work going on there for a while.

UPDATE: Went out again after dark and got some great photos of the memorials with a tripod and bracketed exposures. I shot the Lincoln, Washington, WW2, and Jefferson memorials and plan to get the White House and other memorials tomorrow night.

West Wing construction

Hmmm. What's going on at the West Wing? Structural steel beam construction? Is the president adding on a rumpus room?

McKim's drawings

The Library of Congress is pile of cheeky monkeys, teasing us with McKim's White House drawings but not making them available online. I'm not sure if that link will even work. There's no proper perma-link listed. If not, I searched for "temporary executive offices".

UPDATE: Changed the link. Maybe that will work better. You can also go to the search page and search for "temporary executive offices".

Creme de la CREM

Delved back into the Report of the Commission on the Renovation of the Executive Mansion from 1952 and added floor plans from there. I'm not sure why I hadn't done this before, because I photographed some of the plans months ago so I could draw the modern second and third floor plans.

As a part of this, I saw a diagram I hadn't noticed before. It shows a cross-section of the East Sitting Hall looking west, and shows clearly how the hidden staircase to the third floor is structured.

More from the Truman Library

Looking over the Truman renovation report again, I noticed that the west side of the third floor, aside from being labeled "pent house," is described in the New Furnishings section as "Servants' Rooms #315-#322."

That led me to search the Truman Library collection again and add a few more pictures, including a new separate page for Bathroom 315 and the Master Bathroom.

West Wing ground floor

Substantial changes to the WW ground floor based on info from knowledgeable sources, now showing, for example, the fact that the Navy Mess pick-up window was moved.

Press Briefing Room

Briefing room is due to be unveiled today. Pete points out that around 8:00 AM "people may want to try to tune in to CNN or something like that to see George and Laura host the unveiling ceremony." I'll post updates during the day as better pics become available. I expect Time's WH Photo of the Day to have a good one early.

UPDATES:
WH release
WH fact sheet

ABC/AP story, with gut-wrenching "President Bush is a real cut-up" lede.
Examiner/AP story, same writer, leaving the excrutiating turns of phrase to the president.

FLASH: Hou Chron's Julie Mason rocks the inside scoop--pool pics!

President Bloomberg's White House

Weird article on how Michael Bloomberg might alter the West Wing... if he wanted to make it like his current offices.... if he were to become president... if he were to run....

Press Briefing Room

Still awaiting decent pictures of the new Press Briefing Room and Press Offices.... Here is another article, with images that will make any photographer wince. Why pay professionals handsome salaries if you're only going to display their pictures 274 pixels across?

The article says they haven't enlarged it at all and have even kept the pool—the pool that's been covered and unused for fully half its existence.

UPDATE: Added pics to the Press Briefing Room and Press Offices pages, including a mind-blowing photo of the brand-new Nixon briefing/tea party room from a great article passed along by both Robert and Pete.

A dip in the press pool

Julie Mason of the Houston Chronicle has indeed come thru with pics of the new press area! I didn't realize it at first because the Chron bloggers moved to a new site.

I also missed the tee-ball coverage.

New front page: Bush 2 Lincoln Bedroom

I changed the front page to one of the new Lincoln Bedroom. The WHHA seems to be holding off on a new An Historic Guide until the Bush renovations are complete, but that may be January 2009....

Interesting shot of the gold chairs in, I think, the East Room.

Also: congratulations to Mimlog on a, uh, Minilog.

Kennedy kitchen remodel

Stephen M sent a note about the history of Margaret Truman's bathroom and the kitchen elevator that convinces me that the bathroom still exists in place of the spiral stairs. The basic gist is that, "according to Carl Sferrazza Anthony's book, The Kennedy White House (see page 66) the bathroom was retained." I've changed the floor plan accordingly.

Kennedy renovation

Luke sent along a link to an interesting page on the Kennedy renovation, complete with scans of documents and photos of moving furniture. Unfortunately, it seems to be more of a teaser than an attempt to actually make the documents available on the Web. Few of the documents are readable.

More Johnson and a little more Truman

Visitor Todd S sent a note about a mysterious picture in the Truman archives that turned out to be a mislabeled pic of the Vermeil Room in 1952 1948. While I was nosing around, I also found a pic of the Library in 1948, something else I didn't have. Now if I could only find some ground floor pics from the 1902 renovation....

Also, I added a several more images from the Johnson archives, and a pic that John in NOLA sent a while ago of the Nellie Custis (Washington) sofa.

A peek at the 1930s

Mimlog sent several photos that capture the early 1930s West Wing, Blue Room, and Kitchen. And the 1969 Cabinet Room shows the room before Nixon converted it to match the empire style of the mansion.

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.

Press Briefing Room

Wingnut points out that a Politico article on Helen Thomas mentions that the Press Briefing Room won't be ready until May or June, meaning that the room will have been out of commission for 10 or 11 months. We saw in Barney's holiday video that the room was no where near done in December, so that seems accurate, but the long timeline is a stumper. Aside from the possibility that the administration has an ulterior political motive for keeping the press out of the WH, what could be the delay? Charles McKim restored the whole mansion in the same time frame.

My guess: they're building in additional facilities of some sort underground.

White House Today and Yesterday

The blog comments about the January 1961 issue of National Geographic and its cover article "Inside the White House" brought up this little book: The White House: Today and Yesterday. John in NOLA scanned the cover for us. He notes that this book is available through Abe Books and Amazon. Only 60 cents new, in 1962, the book is still available for next to nothing, but has some really wonderful photos—some John had never seen anywhere else and many we've all seen. "Worth adding to your collection, I assure you," he says, altho he notes, "The size of the actual book is 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches," so it's quite small. I'll check it out, but I'll see if I can find the infamous "butcher" cover.

Also, visitor Chris points out that this week's Newsweek features an article on the redecoration of the Lincoln Bedroom.

Update: Link to the Newsweek article online.

TR vs Taft

On the comments for the Reagan post, visitor Anonymous noted that one of the West Wing page pics looked a little odd (specifically, the one that says "(note the clothes line on the east side)"), which sparked a reevaluation of the early WW images. John in NOLA noted that the Roosevelt colonial Rose Garden was intact that pic, so it couldn't be 1920 as I had labeled it and in fact looked to be freshly expanded by Taft in 1909.

I agreed and made the change and then noticed that what had led me to label that pic "1920" was my mistaken understanding of the evolution of the WW roof. Once I looked harder at the west side, I realized that a pic that I thought was circa 1910 (post Taft expansion) was probably 1908 (pre Taft expansion). The difference is in the roof shape, window count (5 for TR; 9 for Taft), and the addition of a west side entrance. This is great, because I was hoping to find a good pic of the WW in TR's time, and didn't realize I already had one. That pic is now captioned "Theodore Roosevelt's original Executive Office Building, circa 1908."

Old-timey White House funtacular

Pete S sent me a bunch of scans from one of the WHHA collections that I don't have (but which I will order shortly), with a treasure trove (is there any other kind of trove?) of old-timey TR and Coolidge era pics of the family residence and old temporary Executive Office Building, which I've incorporated in too many places to list. Check the What's New page.

There is an especially juicy diagram of TR's original EOB, which I had tried to add before but which I couldn't get a good image of. I've relabeled the rooms so you can see the layout of it really well.

West Wing miscellany

I posted Pete's review of The West Wing season 3 (and my review of Backstairs has been up since I blogged it) on the Movies & TV page.

As a result of Pete's interest in the failed Truman West Wing addition, I posted pics of the fulls set of drawings on the Truman Reconstruction page. There's floors G, 1, & 2, pics of Side and Cross section and revised version 2.

Update: White House just posted pics of Bush with Merkel, including a teleconference in the brand new Sit Room. Added to the What's New page. And, I've added links to the What's New page to the front page, About, and the menu.

TR renovation

I've posted a page for the TR renovation. I'm still not satisfied with the structure of these pages, tho. I've linked to the major renovations from the Residence page but also from the East Wing and West Wing pages, where they are also relevant, and it seems a little circular.

New section suggestion

Visitor Dennis has suggested that I create some pages to illustrate the various eras, where the relevant pictures for each era would be gathered. So, for example, there would be a page for Theodore Roosevelt that talks about the McKim renovation and includes the pics of the State Floor rooms and wings of that period.

This meshes well with an idea I'd been kicking around to create a page or pages that describe the changes made by each president. Some presidents (like Carter) didn't really do anything to the WH, of course, so I think it makes more sense to do it for each major renovation.