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 President Adams and 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, the central portion of the north face, and the 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 redecoration schemes, most notably by Louis C. Tiffany in the 1880's. In 1902, Theodore Roosevelt hired Charles McKim of the firm McKim, Mead 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 undertook repairs to the structural system of the house and added a full third floor.

Persistent structural instabilities again required repairs in the 1940's, 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 building. 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.

As the oldest Federal preservation program, the Historic Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record, HABS/HAER produces graphic and written documentation of historically significant architectural, engineering and industrial sites and structures.

In 1969, the National Park Service, the Library of Congress and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) established the Historic American Engineering record (HAER) to document significant engineering and industrial sites.

Medium : Measured drawings

Created/Published : From 1988 -1992

Creator : Historic American Buildings Survey

Forms part of the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record Collection. Housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress

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Product #: HABSWhite001