“I’m not really a plates kind of guy.”

White House--Conservatory--Orchid house, 1903.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s January 28, 2009 NY Times story about President Obama’s White House style is welcome news.

There is now at least an appearance of substance over form in the Oval Office:

If there is one thing Mr. Obama has not gotten around to changing, it is the Oval Office décor.

When Mr. Bush moved in, he exercised his presidential decorating prerogatives and asked his wife, Laura, to supervise the design of a new rug. Mr. Bush loved to regale visitors with the story of the rug, whose sunburst design, he liked to say, was intended to evoke a feeling of optimism.

Scene in the private office of Pres. Hoover showing the effects of the fire which practically destroyed the Executive Offices. (December 26, 1929)

The rug is still there, as are the presidential portraits Mr. Bush selected — one of Washington, one of Lincoln — and a collection of decorative green and white plates. During a meeting last week with retired military officials, before he signed an executive order shutting down the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Mr. Obama surveyed his new environs with a critical eye.

“He looked around,” said one of his guests, retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, “and said, ‘I’ve got to do something about these plates. I’m not really a plates kind of guy.’ ”

I did some additional poking around and learned some interesting things about renovations and changes to the White House over the last 100+ years.

White House, with conservatory in foreground, executive office building's present site, 1869.

The Oval Office did not exist prior to 1909. Theodore Roosevelt had new executive office space built in 1902 and, although the President still had an office in the second-floor residence, he also had an office in the new West Wing.

In addition to the notable achievement of being the only United States President to get stuck in the White House bathtub, William Taft is credited with having constructed the first Oval Office in 1909.

President Taft intended the Oval Office to be the center of his administration, and by creating the Oval Office in the center of the West Wing, he was more involved with the day-to-day operation of his presidency than were his recent predecessors. In 1933, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president, he had a new Oval Office constructed; he disliked the original central location because it lacked windows, as a result being entirely reliant on skylights. The new office’s location at the southeast corner of the West Wing also allowed presidents greater privacy, being able to slip back and forth between the main White House and the West Wing without being in full view of the West Wing staff, a problem with the two earlier offices.

White House east wing after 1902 construction

In 1917, the year the United States entered World War I and two years after Woodrow Wilson signed Executive Order 2268, “establishing a United States sheep experiment station,” the White House acquired a small herd of sheep.

Three men with White House sheep on south lawn. (Between 1909 and 1932)

Conservation was the by word around the White House; eight sheep were soon gracing the lawns . . . many thousands of dollars were raised for the Red Cross through the auctioning of wool. Two pounds of wool were sold for each state when the sheep were fleeced of almost a hundred pounds of raw wool.

Wool from White House sheep.

The Oval Office was gutted by fire on Christmas eve, 1929. Not an auspicious way to end Herbert Hoover’s first year in office.

A historical account of the fire can be found here.

Franklin Roosevelt had the Oval Office relocated and enlarged to its present configuration and is responsible for other “improvements” to the White House:

Roosevelt had long wanted an extension of the East Wing to house a White House museum, but he was unable to raise sufficient funds. He continued to collect artifacts, and after the United States entered World War II in 1941, ordered the wing begun as an emergency action. Winslow designed it; Congress funded it, and the construction was conducted behind high wooden fences in utmost secrecy. Unknown to the public, the new addition included a bomb shelter, a grim series of concrete rooms several stories beneath the ground, with a presidential chamber in the center furnished with a cot and desk. Roosevelt is said to have refused to return to the room after seeing it once.

White House. Washington, D.C., July 1941.

Red, Green and Blue has an interesting and educational post, with photos, about past and present White House recreational facilities. The White House Historical Association, while slightly less entertaining, has additional input on the subject. This is pretty good stuff.

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