White House
Download Historic American Buildings Survey cover page
Cover page of the architectural and historical report on the White House compiled by the Historic American Buildings Survey
Excerpt
Official residence and office of the chief executive of the United States, the White House stands as one of the foremost symbols of the U.S. government. In 1792, Irish-born architect James Hoban won the competition to design the president’s house, and was retained to supervise construction. The design was based on the House of Leinster in Dublin. Hoban’s design underwent several major changes including the lowering of the original raised basement and the deletion of a third floor and a full-width south porch. The aquia sandstone faced building was first painted with whitewash in 1798. The White House was unfinished but ready for occupancy in 1800 when the government moved to Washington.
After the building was burned by British troops in 1814, the house was left as a shell. Only the south front, central portion of the north face, and basement walls were salvageable. Hoban supervised the reconstruction, which was completed by 1817. He also added the south porch in 1824 and the north portico in 1829. The exterior of the main house has remained basically unchanged until the addition of the south balcony in 1948.
The interior was altered considerably by frequent redecorating schemes, most notably by Louis C. Tiffany in the 1880s. In 1902, Theodore Roosevelt hired Charles McKim of the firm McKim, Mean and White to remodel the house. McKim relocated the grand stair, enlarged the state dining room, expanded the attic, and redesigned the interior in the colonial revival style. In 1927 William A. Delano understood repairs to the structural system of the house and added a full third floor.
Persistent structural instabilities again required repairs in the 1940s, but this time President Harry S Truman authorized a major rebuilding. The house was gutted to its exterior walls and a steel and concrete structure inserted within. Architect Lorenzo Winslow retained the general arrangement of rooms in the reconstruction. McKim’s interior ornament was simplified and little of the original ornament was reused. The stone-faced brick walls are literally all that remain of the 1817 rebuilding. Figuratively the White House endures: as the home of the president, as the symbol of the Executive Branch of the government, and as an elegant Neoclassical house, true to its original design concept….
Questions
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