CURB APPEAL This photo depicts the north side of the , perhaps the most famous view. Look familiar? Check it against the back of a $20 bill.

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THE WHITE HOUSE OPENS

ITS DOORS TO MORE ✮

THERE’S NO HOME LIKE THIS HOME. WHITE HOUSE CURATOR WILLIAM ALLMAN TAKES US ON AN INSIDER’S TOUR AND TALKS HISTORY, FOLKLORE AND THE FIRST LADY’S COMMITMENT TO MAINTAINING AN OPEN-DOOR POLICY

BY SUSAN SWIMMER

PHOTOGRAPHED B Y WILLIAM ABRANOWICZ CREDITS TK HERE THE WHITE HOUSE OPENS ITS DOORS ✮

IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK

the wallpaper’s 32 vignettes, based on engravings from the 1820s, are impressively detailed, but the European makers took artis- tic license with historical accuracy.­ For exam- ple, in the scene above, African Americans are depicted as well-to-do, which was more CURVED WALL OF THE likely to have been the case in France at that DIPLOMATIC RECEPTION ROOM time than in the United States.

WHERE DIPLOMACY BEGINS t’s hard not to feel humbled standing just outside the gates of the White House. It’s pristine. It’s majestic. It’s incredibly well fortified: Entry the diplomatic Reception Room is a bit requires a multiple-step security check that makes the screening at an of a throughway, as it leads to the , international airport seem like a supermarket checkout line. But I stick where events take place and Marine One it out; after all, I’ve been told there are two energetic pups that are ea- departs. The panoramic wallpaper, “Views of ger to make my acquaintance. Soon I am playing with the First Dogs. North America,” was printed in 1834 by Jean The White House was planned by George Washington, the only Zuber et Cie in Rixheim, Alsace, France. Lest I President never to have lived there. In 1800, John Adams and his wife, Abigail, moved you think the White House can’t be thrifty, in, taking over the largest house in the United States at the time (it cost $232,372 to this paper was repurposed. William Allman, the build—attention, Zillow.com—even though it lacked running water, central heat and White House curator, explains: “It was rescued electricity). Today the house features six levels, 28 fireplaces and 132 rooms (including from a house near Camp David that was set to 35 bathrooms, and FYI—the one in the is lovely). It has long been called be demolished. A local antiques dealer paid the People’s House, but it has never been more inclusive than during the Obamas’ ten- the demo crew $50 to let him scrape the paper ure. Michelle Obama has an open-door policy, especially for young people: Kids from from the walls, and he later sold it to Jacque- across the country help tend the vegetable garden, meet musical performers before their line Kennedy.” This room was most famously official events and preview state dinners (taste testing included). “For them to walk the site of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fire- through the doors of the White House as invited guests and sit in these rooms where side chats in the 1930s and ’40s. history has been made, that’s one of those life-changing moments,” Mrs. Obama says. The point is, it’s not just a family home. It is a museum, work space, command center and repository of our nation’s history. It has opened its doors to dignitaries and star- lets, poets and power brokers, politicians and philanthropists and thousands of ordinary citizens. It gets a lot of use: There are 3,000 tourists a day and 250 receptions a year. It also gets a bit of misuse, such as when three visiting Dallas Cowboys football players sat on an 1815 Duncan Phyfe sofa and broke it. Fortunately for all of us, the house endures.

89 MORE JUL/AUG 2015 A VIEW TO THE WASHINGTON PORTRAIT

GREEN WITH FRENZY

one foot inside the (right), and my thoughts turn to curling up with a good book and a glass of wine. In reality, the room is occasionally used as a waiting area for VIPs before an event (similar to a greenroom in a television studio, a pop-cultural coinci- dence that is lost on no one). The nomencla- ture had humble beginnings: A green canvas floor covering was put down in 1808, the first use of the color in the room; by 1825 the space was officially referred to as the Green Room. Emerald-colored furniture was added over the years (most of the current pieces by ). The view into the (left) reveals the famous 1797 portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart. When the house was set ablaze by British troops in 1814, Dolley Madison realized she wouldn’t be able to get the portrait off the wall in time (it was bolted on). A quick thinker, she had men break the frame in order to remove the canvas. The Stuart painting is, hands down, the most valuable piece of art in the White House. Allman points to another painting he likes, Sand Dunes at Sunset (not pictured), by Henry Ossawa Tanner, which he says is un- usual because the artist incorporated actual sand into the paint.

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THE BUILDERS, BY JACOB LAWRENCE THE WHITE HOUSE OPENS ITS DOORS ITS OPENS HOUSE WHITE THE

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MORE JUL/AUG 2015 91 more MOOD ABLUE IN ONCE White House Christmas tree each year. each tree Christmas House White official the exhibits Room Blue The blaze. ofcart supplies to construct a photo-ready arolling with arrived who starters, fire House White to the thanks right) bottom (opposite, ’ s

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CREDITS TK HERE

HANNIBAL CLOCK ✮

GILDED BELLANGÉ FURNITURE THE WHITE HOUSE OPENS ITS DOORS DOORS ITS OPENS HOUSE WHITE THE

INSIDE THE OVAL with its oval shape, the fools some into thinking it’s the Oval, but in fact the White House was designed with three stacked oval rooms, an unusual element championed by George Washington. Why? Washington’s home in Philadelphia had an oval-ended room, Allman says, and he liked it because “he never wanted to get backed into a corner.” The mantel clock, a gilded de- piction of Hannibal, the African general (above), is considered one of the most valuable items in the White House. “He’s a man with a check- ered reputation, to say the least,” says Allman. In 1817, clocks were fashionable objets, and the White House wanted one for its collection. But rumor has it that finding a clothed figure was a challenge. The gilded furniture is a standout: President Monroe purchased a 53-piece suite made by Pierre-Antoine Bellangé, a Parisian. It remained in place for 40 years, but when styles changed, all but one table was sold at auc- tion in 1860 (the White House regularly carted off old furnishings to be sold, which was le- gal until 1903). Allman says that according to White House folklore, Mrs. Kennedy found the remaining table in the White House carpen- ter’s shop and embarked on a quest (i.e., pub- licity tour) to locate the 52 lost pieces of the suite. Amazingly, people came forward with a few “returns,” and the White House now has 10 of the original pieces. When I ask Allman if he watches Antiques Roadshow more carefully than the rest of us, I’m only half joking. LINCOLN PORTRAIT IN THE STATE DINING ROOM

DINNER IS SERVED

the state dining room (left) has served vari- ous purposes over the years—office, drawing room—but most recently has hosted ma- jor events, such as the entertainment for the 2015 state dinner for the Prime Minister of Ja- pan, which occurred not 20 hours before we arrived. (Massive floral arrangements that in- cluded white lilies the size of basketballs were everywhere.) The space was expanded over time to hold more people (as the nation grew, so did the nation’s guest list). The focal point is the portrait of , painted by George P.A. Healy in 1869, a gift from the Lin- coln family. The surround is a marvel: It has a centerplate (below left) engraved with a pas- sage from the first letter John Adams wrote to his wife when he arrived at the White House, in 1800: “I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall here- after inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”

THE NEW OLD

all first families like to leave their mark, and for the Obamas this took the form of adding 20th-century art and design to the state rooms. “They share a real interest in abstract art,” Allman says. “The question was, if we were to acquire modern art for the per- manent collection, how would it fit in, and

where would it go?” The answer was the Old ✮

Family Dining Room, where almost all First Families ate their meals until Mrs. Kennedy re- located her family dinners to the private quar- ters. Mrs. Obama and Allman embarked on a plan to renovate. Important artwork—paintings by Rauschenberg, Albers and Alma Thomas (her canvas, opposite)—was procured through

MANTEL­ INSCRIPTION donations, and a new rug was created (up close you can see the metallic threading in the weave, which makes it look as if the rug were sprinkled with fairy dust). Fresh draperies were hung, and an Art Deco tea service, made for the

THE WHITE HOUSE OPENS ITS DOORS ITS OPENS HOUSE WHITE THE 1939 World’s Fair, was added to a sideboard. The American-made­ table and chairs, previously acquired and retained for the redo, are antiques. “The goal is to keep evolving the space,“ says Allman. “Someone will offer us a great modern piece at some point, and we’ll put it in.” A MODERN MUSEUM the obamas’ official state china includes white plates with Kailua Blue accents (inspired by the waters off the coast of the President’s home state of Hawaii) and gold- rimmed charger plates. The glass- ware is a new iteration of a set first made for Jacqueline Kennedy.

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