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This led the mansion’s second occupant, Thomas Jefferson, to propose expanding it by constructing two extensions to the east and west to connect the president’s house with adjacent office buildings. In 1948, President Harry S Truman added a hotly debated balcony to the South Portico, on the second floor. Not long after this construction, it was discovered that the main body of the residence was structurally unstable. The structure was emptied and rebuilt using concrete and steel beams to replace the original wooden beams. Bathrooms were added to each room, and the grand staircase was opened to the Entrance Hall instead of the Cross Hall.
Entrance Hall and Grand Staircase
It has hosted longstanding traditions such as the annual Easter Egg Roll, as well as historic events like the 1987 nuclear arms treaty with Russia. The only private residence of a head of state open free of charge to the public, the White House reflects a nation’s history through the accumulated collections of its residing presidents, and serves as a worldwide symbol of the American republic. William Taft hired architect Nathan Wyeth to expand the executive wing in 1909, resulting in the formation of the Oval Office as the president’s work space. In 1913, the White House added another enduring feature with Ellen Wilson’s Rose Garden.
Making It Accessible
The pavilions, porticos, or columns supporting the entrance roof were added later. The first floor of the West Wing includes the Oval Office and the offices of those closest to the president. It also houses meeting rooms and offices for the White House Press Corps. The basements of the White House were not part of the original structure. They were excavated in 1949 during the renovation undertaken by Truman.
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Oval rooms became common in neoclassical architecture early in the 19th century. An architect, James Hoban, visited President Washington in Philadelphia in June 1792, and probably saw the bow window.[9] The next month, Hoban won the design competition for the White House. The Oval Office is the formal working space of the president of the United States. Part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it is in the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, D.C.
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In keeping with his ardent republicanism, he opened the house to public visitation each morning, a tradition that was continued (during peacetime) by all his successors. He personally drew up landscaping plans and had two earthen mounds installed on the south lawn to remind him of his beloved Virginia Piedmont. Meanwhile, construction continued on the building’s interior, which still lacked ample staircases and suffered from a persistently leaky roof.
Historical accessibility

In 1842 the visit to the United States of the English novelist Charles Dickens brought an official invitation to the White House. After his calls at the White House door went unanswered, Dickens let himself in and walked through the mansion from room to room on the lower and upper floors. Finally coming upon a room filled with nearly two dozen people, he was shocked and appalled to see many of them spitting on the carpet. Dickens later wrote, “I take it for granted the Presidential housemaids have high wages.” Until the Civil War, however, most White House servants were enslaved people. Moreover, the wages of all White House employees—as well as the expenses for running the White House, including staging official functions—were paid for by the president. Not until 1909 did Congress provide appropriations to pay White House servants.
Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President
By 1948, the residence's load-bearing walls and wood beams were found to be close to failure. Under Harry S. Truman, the interior rooms were completely dismantled and a new internal load-bearing steel frame was constructed inside the walls. Once the structural work was completed, the interior rooms were rebuilt. Roosevelt moved the offices of the executive branch into the newly constructed wing in 1902. His workspace was a two-room suite of Executive Office and Cabinet Room, occupying the eastern third of the building.

Little-Known White House Facts: From Who Lived (and Died) There to Who's Said to Haunt the Halls!
The former housekeeper’s room, with its built-in closets, is now the Diplomatic Reception Room. At that time, the Public Audience Room (East Room) was not finished and remained unfinished for years. The grand staircase at the north end of what is now the State Dining Room and some of the second-floor rooms were only used for storage. The White House today holds 132 rooms on six floors, the floor space totaling approximately 55,000 square feet.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., — who played a critical role in enacting the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act as well as in directing the funding to his home state — said it would be the single largest private investment in New York history. Micron plans to invest about $100 billion to build out a manufacturing campus in Syracuse's northern suburbs. President Biden traveled to Syracuse, N.Y., on Thursday to tout $6.1 billion in federal grants for Micron Technology that supporters say could bring an economic revival to the region and dramatically boost domestic U.S. semiconductor chip production to compete with China. The White House Tour entrance is located in Sherman Park at 15th Street NW and Alexander Hamilton Place NW. If arriving by rideshare, use the White House Visitor Center (WHVC) as the drop-off address. The WHVC is located at 1450 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.
White House, the official office and residence of the president of the United States at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. In Washington, D.C. It is perhaps the most famous and easily recognizable house in the world, serving as both the home and workplace of the president and the headquarters of the president’s principal staff members. The White House gets mentioned in the news arguably more often than any other edifice in the U.S.
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. The White House is the official office and residence of the president of the United States. It’s been 229 years since the cornerstone was laid in 1792, but the White House has gotten its fair share of facelifts over the years. Theodore Roosevelt launched a huge renovation in 1902, and Harry Truman had pretty much everything but the building’s exterior demolished and rebuilt between 1948 and 1952.