The White House: An Informal History of its Architecture, Interiors and Gardens

By Ethel Lewis

The White House, first published in 1937, is a fascinating look at the building—and rebuilding —of the presidential White House as well as vivid descriptions and insights into the lives of the ‘first families’ who lived there (from John Adams up to Franklin Roosevelt), and of the changes each new President brought to the building, its interior and grounds, and to the surrounding city. Following its construction at the turn of the 19th century, the White House was for a long period uncompleted, neglected, and trampled by hordes of careless visitors, as well as home to successive presidents and their families attempting to conduct the nation’s business, host numerous parties and provide lodging for visiting foreign dignitaries. Renovations were on-going, and each First Lady would change rooms to reflect her own or the prevailing interior style popular at the time. Additions to the cramped quarters were planned and usually rejected. Concurrently, Washington D.C. was changing from a disease-ridden swamp with unpaved, muddy streets, into a planned city with wide paved boulevards on the Parisian model. Included are 16 pages of illustrations depicting changes in the exterior and interior of the White House since its construction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phocion Publishing
• Release date: Nov 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781789128673

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Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

THE WHITE HOUSE

AN INFORMAL HISTORY OF ITS

ARCHITECTURE, INTERIORS and GARDENS

By ETHEL LEWIS

The White House was originally published in 1948 by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., New York.

• • •

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

FOREWORD 5

CHAPTER I — Introducing the White House 6

CHAPTER II — Building the President’s Palace 16

CHAPTER III — The First White House Family 24

CHAPTER IV — Jefferson, Architect and Statesman 32

CHAPTER V — The Gay Madisons 40

CHAPTER VI — The Monroes Entertain 50

CHAPTER VII — The Second Adams 58

CHAPTER VIII — The Jackson Era 65

CHAPTER IX — The Gold and Silver Administration 73

CHAPTER X — Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too 79

CHAPTER XI — Four Quiet Administrations 86

CHAPTER XII — Buchanan, the Bachelor President 93

CHAPTER XIII — The President’s House in the Sixties 97

CHAPTER XIV — The Soldier President 106

CHAPTER XV — White House Entertaining in the Eighties 112

CHAPTER XVI — A Presidential Wedding in the White House 120

CHAPTER XVII — The Executive Mansion of the Nineties 126

CHAPTER XVIII — The Roosevelt Era 132

CHAPTER XIX — The Restoration of the White House 141

CHAPTER XX — Quiet Years in the White House 149

CHAPTER XXI — Recent White House Families 158

CHAPTER XXII — The White House of Today 168

PRESIDENTS AND FIRST LADIES IN THE WHITE HOUSE 177

ILLUSTRATIONS 179

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 196

FOREWORD

"I AM frequently asked the greatest pleasure I find in my life in the White House. The answer will probably astonish many of you, for without question I think I enjoy most having all the flowers I want around me and being able to send them whenever I wish to the friends who will enjoy them.

I never expect again to have this experience, but while it lasts it is a very great joy.

Another one of my greatest joys is the view from the south portico of the White House looking over the White House lawn with its fountain and hedges and beyond the public lawn where in summer boys and girls play baseball and other games, to the Washington Monument standing out above the trees.

To anyone who has lived much in Washington this monument comes to mean the spirit of the city and wherever you are you will find it. It seems to reach up to the skies and stand there to remind us of the dreams which made it possible for the few men of 1776 to start the United States of America.

Every night before I go to bed, and sometimes that is very late, I take my dogs for a walk around the drive which circles the White House grounds. If it is before twelve the big floodlights light up the monument, making it a brilliant white, and even more beautiful and conspicuous than in the daytime.

If it is after midnight, the monument shines in its own whiteness sometimes, with only the moon upon it. But always at the top burns the little red light placed there, perhaps, to guide night airplanes. But I like to think it is meant to symbolize the never-failing love and patriotism of George Washington, which no hardships could extinguish and which is our constant reminder of duty to our country.

When I reach the far side of the drive and look back at the stately White House with its beautiful portico lighted only by the lights from the windows, and yet shining out in its whiteness against the darkness, I get a sense of what this house symbolizes in its exterior of beauty and dignity.

These two things give me the greatest joy, and perhaps all my life they will be a joy, for beauty carried in memory is often as great a happiness as when you are experiencing it."

Mrs. FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT

(Copyright 1933, by the North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc., Washington, D.C., July 29.)

CHAPTER I — Introducing the White House

THE White House has a more distinctive personality than any other house in the United States. That it should have any individuality at all is remarkable, for probably no other important home has survived so many changes. During one hundred and forty years of national ups and downs, while Presidents have come and gone, the White House has undergone three major reconstructions, and its interior has been changed on an average of every four years—to suit the whims -of those who live there as well as the dictates of fashion. These changes may explain its uniqueness, for other houses are likely to reflect the character of those who live in them and love them. The White House has had no opportunity to become a reflection of any one regime.

The nation is proud of the White House and well it should be. As the clever newspaper commentator known as Olivia said to her readers of the sixties and seventies:

When we go to the Executive Mansion we go to our own house. Our sacred feet press our own tufted Wiltons. We recline on our own satin and ebony. We are received graciously by our own well-dressed servants.

It is our sense of ownership which makes this particular house so dear to us all. We take pride in it—far more than any foreigner could take in the home of his ruler, wherein all is mysterious and closed to the public.

It has seen weddings and birthdays and funerals; babies, young people, and old people. No battles have surged through it as through some of the splendid palaces of Europe, no kings have been toppled from its throne, and very little intrigue has been born within its walls.

John Adams, as the first President to live in the White House, back in 1800, wrote this little prayer:

Heaven bestow the best of blessings on this house, and on all that shall hereinafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.

No matter what we may think of the honesty and wisdom of those who have lived there, it would seem that the blessings have indeed been granted to the house—and to what it stands for.

Every person—native or foreign—who goes to the capital of these United States wants to visit the White House, or at least to pass by and enjoy its exterior beauty. And it is beautiful, and it is gracious, even to the casual visitor. George Washington is really the one to be thanked for this, because, when plans were being discussed, it was his idea to give to the President’s new home the sumptuousness of a palace, the convenience of a house, and the agreeableness of a country seat. It certainly has all that.

The apparently low white house set in its grove of green trees looks inviting. From the north—the Pennsylvania Avenue side—it appears to be a rectangular two-story house of white stone surmounted by a balustrade. In the center is a splendid portico of tall Ionic columns under which one drives to the official front door of the White House. On either side of the portico are evenly balanced rows of windows, the detail of each worthy of note by the student of architecture. If it is summer, the trees are heavy with foliage, there is a little fountain playing in the pool, and there are colorful flowers placed casually here and there—no formal gardens. If it is winter, the deep tone of the evergreens gives a warm contrast to the pure whiteness of the building itself. Never is there a season when that view from the north is not pleasing. Even in a rain it is delightful—the white form of the house dimmed by the mist.

The southern view is perhaps even more lovely and friendly, for this side was planned as the front of the house. Here is another portico, a semicircular one made by six tall Ionic columns topped with a balustrade. In the very early days two graceful flights of stairs swept up on either side of this portico to the main floor. Now there is a porch for the use of the family. Because the land slopes away below this porch, the ground-floor rooms are easily seen, including the entrance to the Oval Room which used to be the old Diplomatic Reception Room.

The trees and the rolling mounds at either side—about which you will hear more later—cut off a bit of the view of the terraces which extend to the east and west. They are really long one-story galleries, the tops of which serve as promenades. Flowers and box trees and orange trees, all neatly trimmed, and occasional benches, make these terrace promenades as attractive as miniature gardens. Though to the casual observer they seem symmetrical, the Western terrace, which connects the White House with the Executive Offices, is fifty feet shorter than the Eastern one. The rectangular house itself is 170 feet long, 85 feet deep, and 58 feet high. The two end facades of the building are alike, with Palladian windows opening out on the terraces, and arched windows directly above on the second floor. The main entrance for the public is from the East Terrace. You can drive in there and, if you are attending a party, you will leave your wraps in the long corridor before proceeding into the White House proper.

Back in the days when the builders were struggling to get the house ready for John Adams to move into, there was great consternation because no one had thought of the necessity of erecting a fence. And, after all, what gentleman could be asked to move to a house which had no fence around it? That fence, finally put up, has been changed almost more than the house itself—for first of all it was wood, then stone; next there were chains, and finally iron spikes something like those which are there today. The grounds to the north are now always open and you may, if you like, walk or drive through—right by the presidential front door! The south grounds are not open to the public except, of course, for the famous Easter Monday egg rolling, which has been called the most expensive lawn party in the world.

The grounds surrounding the White House always cause comment, for they are so simple and unpretentious—there are no formal gardens, though there is a lovely rose garden. The splendid trees are the chief attraction; some of them are very old, and some very new. There are now three hundred and forty-three trees in the grounds, of ninety-one different species. Various Presidents have planted them—there is even one old elm supposedly set out by John Quincy Adams. Perhaps the most beautiful trees are the magnificent magnolias planted by Andrew Jackson on either side of the south entrance. On the grounds are thickets, one of which encloses the President’s Walk. There are other rambling walks, and there is a tennis court. Near the East Terrace are other small gardens and an oblong pool.

The house has had three separate and distinctive titles, representing three phases in its history. In 1792, when we were not too far removed from royal influences, the new building was called the President’s Palace. And so it remained until the British burned it in 1814. When the Monroes moved in after the rebuilding they began to call it officially the Executive Mansion. From 1818 until 1902 that was its title. Of course, even during the first period, it was also known as the White House—if for no other reason than to distinguish it from its brick neighbors. There was a law in Washington then regarding the use of brick for houses—and a red-brick city it used to be. There seems little authority for the suggestion that it was called the White House after the house of that name which had been Martha Washington’s home. The general belief is that it was so named because it was painted white after the burning by the British; but, though the blackened walls certainly needed to be made white, there had been white paint over the freestone even before that.

Wherever the name started, it gradually grew in popularity, and throughout the entire nineteenth century there were many casual references to it by that name, despite the careful official designation of it as the Executive Mansion. In 1902, when its interior was all remodeled once more, Theodore Roosevelt decided that the White House should be its official name, and so it has remained to this day. The new name does seem far more expressive of what the home of the President should stand for than the previous, more formal titles. The number one home of the nation is a house, and not a mansion or a palace.

Keeping it white is quite a problem, too. The stone of which it was built is porous, though the architects, back in 1792, thought their selection of it a master stroke. It has to be repainted every few years, and a real problem that is. Scaffolding must go up and yet it must not interfere with the smooth running of the White House routine.

Consequently it is done when the family is not in residence, if possible. It takes about two hundred gallons of paint and twenty-five painters working as fast as they can. In between times, when it begins to get a bit grimy-looking the Washington fire department is called in to give its face a thorough cleansing.

To appreciate how the White House has come to be what it is one must look at its surroundings. George Washington had a vision in regard to the city, too, and, what was perhaps more important, he had the wisdom to select the services of one of the cleverest of city designers. Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant, who so skillfully laid out Washington, was none too well thought of as work went forward in its building—and finally he was pushed aside. It was not until more than one hundred years later that he received the public recognition which was his due. During the administration of President Taft his body was brought to the Rotunda of the Capitol for an official funeral, and then interred in Arlington, with others of America’s finest.

It was hard sledding—the making of a new city out of a wilderness, but L’Enfant foresaw its importance one hundred or two hundred years hence, and planned it accordingly. Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, when visiting Washington in Jefferson’s day, did not think so much of the feeble efforts which were being made, and tossed off this bit of doggerel:

"This famed metropolis where fancy sees

Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees,

Which traveling fools and gazeteers adorn

With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn."

At this time the beautiful Lafayette Square, where General Jackson, atop his bronze horse, now salutes the passing throng, was just part of the Public Market.

A French lady who visited there shortly afterward found a nice difference between the capital and the adjacent town of Georgetown where so many of the government people lived. She described Washington as a city of streets without houses, while Georgetown with its lovely homes and gardens she found a town made up of houses without streets.

Abigail Adams, with her usual clear-sightedness, thought that much more might have been done in twelve years if they had just had a New Englander on the job. As the city grew there seemed little rhyme or reason to its development, for even at the President’s Palace the laborers were allowed to build their own shacks, and these nestled under the wing of the great, raw-looking house. Other fine buildings finally came into being, but still crude huts rubbed elbows with marble colonnades. There was slovenliness in the midst of elegance. As a city it was absurd, impossible, if not ridiculous, and yet everyone loved it. Dickens found it reminiscent of the outskirts of London or the slums of Paris. He more or less approved the green blinds on every house and the red curtain and white one he saw in every window. But he did not enjoy the roads which he thought were just freshly plowed up. They weren’t—that was their usual condition. And as for the weather, he considered it tyrannical, as it might be scorching hot in the morning, and freezing before nightfall, with an occasional tornado of wind and dust. It was he who thought that instead of being called The City of Magnificent Distances, which it is now and was always intended to be, it might better be called The City of Magnificent Intentions.

It is easy to understand why the interior of the White House has been changed almost every time a new family moved in. Abigail Adams, the first First Lady, put up with many inconveniences that later ladies would have swooned to contemplate. But her crimson drawing-room furniture made the upstairs oval room a thing of beauty even then. The Monroes with their gorgeous French furniture did the first thorough job of furnishing—but the Congress never did like their taste very much, no matter how well the house looked. French furniture prevailed, however, even through the terms of Jackson and Van Buren, though on the latter’s head fell the greater share of criticism for it.

During our own Civil War little progress was made in the White House, but in the seventies the presidential families went in for the new and smart Victorian furniture which was sweeping this country as well as England. There was plenty of plush and horsehair then, huge mirrors—and tables must have marble tops. Lincoln, of course, had favored black walnut and to this day in one of the second-floor rooms stands his famous nine-foot bed. In the days of Grant, lambrequins for mantel or bracket shelf, or even for chandelier, were all the rage. Probably never has the White House looked quite so upholstered as it did at that time.

Mr. Arthur swept the house clean—literally, for he sent away to auction some twenty-odd loads of stuff that had accumulated in the attic and basement, and even in the parlors. He started afresh, and his decorator provided the very last word. For was he not Louis Tiffany from New York? The most outstandingly atrocious thing which those two concocted was a stained-glass screen which cut off the long corridor from the drafty entrance hall. It had wrinkled glass, with insets of jewel glass, and designs that were both Islamic and American in their symbolism. Harrison, in an effort to go him one better, added stained-glass windows to the Blue Room.

When Theodore Roosevelt came with his large family, he said that something just had to be done. So not only were the Executive Offices moved out of the White House for the first time since Jefferson’s day, but the entire building was renovated. When Mr. McKim, of McKim, Mead and White, made his famous report as to the bad condition of the interior structure of the White House, everyone was amazed. But no one should have been, for the timbers, heavy as they were, had been exposed to all kinds of weather during the long period of construction. It is a fascinating story of good building to read how the interior of that house was actually scooped out and put back together again to look like its old self—the house originally planned by Hoban, back in 1792. The exterior was not changed at all at that time. But it must have been reassuring to those who have lived there to know that steel beams replaced rotting timbers.

When the question of furnishings came up there arose a nationwide controversy, which is still going on. One group of people felt that the White House should have in it only authentic antiques—American-made—from the period when the house was first built. The other group, which included the American Institute of Architects, thought that the effect would be better if the furniture harmonized with the style of the house, which was really the late Georgian of the early nineteenth century. The result has been a compromise which is in most instances quite agreeable. The parlors are now pleasant rooms with a due amount of formality in their furnishings—but not too much, for they still hold a rather heterogeneous collection. The East Room may strike one as being too barren, but when filled with chairs for a musicale it seems too crowded. Its beauty lies in its architecture, and in its chandeliers and mirrors and draperies, rather than in its furniture and rugs. On the second floor Mrs. Hoover fitted up what has come to be known as the Monroe Room. For this she had the furniture from the Monroe Museum in Fredericksburg faithfully copied, so there is a feeling of authenticity about it that adds to its charm.

Those who have dwelt in the White House offer as great diversity as do their whims for furnishings. Mrs. John Adams had but four months in which to stamp her personality on the great barn of a house in which only six rooms were completed. But she did it—for her famous letters gave a picture of the unfinished state of the mansion that no one will ever forget. Her using The Audience Chamber of the Nation for drying the wash may seem but an amusing anecdote today, but it couldn’t have been very funny then—even to that brave woman who was so used to the vicissitudes of life in early America.

Jefferson, that voluminous letter writer, was just a zany who invented whirligig chairs, and delved into philosophy. He broke all the rules for entertaining and did exactly as he pleased. John Adams scathingly remarked that Jefferson didn’t need to have formal levees, for his whole eight years in office were nothing but one long levee. As he was a widower, he chose for his official hostess the inimitable Dolly Madison, who lorded it over Washington society from one throne or another for fifty years. Not that they didn’t want her to—for everyone was at her pretty feet, and never has there been another who could equal her in popularity. There were polite murmurs of disapproval from those who thought that she had traveled pretty far from her Quaker upbringing when she bedecked herself with brilliant jewels and topped her curls with the amazing turbans which were as distinctive of Dolly Madison as are Queen Mary’s hats of that well-loved Queen of England.

When the excitement following the burning of the White House by the British had quieted down a bit, President and Mrs. Madison came back to Washington and, having looked over the fire-cracked walls and heaps of debris that had been their magnificent home, went to live temporarily in the Octagon House. This famous house, now the home of the American Institute of Architects, is one of the delightful sights of Washington. Designed for Colonel Tayloe by Dr. Thornton, that remarkable man who was also the architect of the United States Capitol, it represented quite the last word in style at that period. It is interesting to note that it was built to fit the shape of the plot of land, which indicates that the broad avenues had already been marked out when Thornton drew his plans in 1798. The interior is so delightful and the detail so fine that it is well worthy of preservation.

Dolly Madison is wrongly credited with having carried George Washington’s portrait from the burning White House. Another person whose reputation was enhanced by the War of 1812 was Francis Scott Key. Late in 1814 he went to Fort McHenry to free a friend and, while detained there on board a ship, witnessed the bombardment of the fort. Distasteful as it may have been to watch, it inspired him to write The Star-Spangled Banner.

President Monroe is most aptly portrayed in one of Abigail Adams’s letters:

When President Monroe was in Boston upon his late tour, encompassed by citizens, surrounded by the military, harassed by invitations to parties, and applications innumerable for office, some gentlemen asked him if he was not completely worn out? To which he replied, ‘Oh, no. A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue.’

Under his direction the White House began to take on the semblance of a mansion. He felt that fine French furniture, an Aubusson carpet, and sparkling chandeliers and candelabra were absolutely essential in creating the illusion of a fine drawing room. When the opportunity was given, everyone rushed to the Executive Mansion to see what he could see, whether he could appreciate the presidential efforts or not. From a press report on one of the weekly levees came this account:

The secretaries, senators, foreign ministers, consuls, auditors, accountants, officers of the army and navy of every grade, farmers, merchants, parsons, priests, lawyers, judges, auctioneers and nothingarians—all with their wives and some with their gawky offspring crowd to the President’s House every Wednesday; some in shoes, most in boots, and many in spurs. Some with powdered heads, others frizzled and oiled, whose heads a comb has never touched, and which are half-hid by dirty collars (reaching far above their ears) as stiff as pasteboard.

But that was only one side of White House entertaining, for the Monroes did their job very thoroughly, with all the frills and furbelows of a European court which they understood so well.

With John Quincy Adams came more of the simple colonial atmosphere, though he had lived abroad even more than had the Monroes. Social obligations irked him, however, despite the fact that he coined the term well-born, thus earning for himself from his fellow workers the title of the Duke of Braintree. What a contrast was the old war horse, General Jackson, when he moved into the White House with the rabble at his heels! He kept an open house, and that he left it in a sorry state seemed not to occur to him. He was a widower when he came to the White House and his championship of the famous Peggy Eaton was inspired by his devotion to the memory of his wife, Rachel. From the lovely Peggy’s own lips come these words descriptive of the emotional trend of the times: Marriage without elopement would be heaven without harps and crowns and light and song.

To President Jackson is credited the spoils system. To the victors belong the spoils is descriptive enough of the situation in his day, but we cannot be sure that he ever used the phrase. Other administrations have made more of it than he ever did. He was a masterful person—there have been few like him—and his changes of Cabinet kept tongues wagging during the entire eight years he was in the White House. He had the first Brain Trust, which the press called his Kitchen Cabinet. Even in those days Presidents were frequently accused of monarchial ideas, for he was dubbed Andrew the First, and Van Buren, who succeeded him, was often hailed as Martin the First.

Van Buren was not liked at all. He lived too well, dressed too well, and was too aristocratic to suit the masses. He would have none of the hurly-burly which had distinguished the Jackson regime. Neither did the legislators like the furniture he bought for the Mansion nor the repairs which he deemed essential after Mr. Jackson’s rough usage. In fact, the famous report made in Congress by Mr. Ogle from Pennsylvania lists to the discredit of President Van Buren practically everything that had been done in the White House since its rebuilding in 1817.

President Harrison, Old Tippecanoe, was not there long enough to leave his mark. His successor, Tyler, did little more—the great excitement of his partial administration being his girl-wife who, though she was in the White House only during the last eight months of his term, made a deep impression on the society of the capital. She dressed in regal fashion—even to the plumes in her hair—and she received sitting down, her maids of honor grouped at either side. That was something new, and something worth talking about, you may be sure. With Mr. Polk as Chief Executive, there was instituted a reign of quiet, for though evening receptions were held, they included no dancing, no refreshments, no games. But Mrs. Polk