White House - geography.

« A large complex is needed for the many activities that take place at the White House.

The White House has 132 rooms, 4 dining rooms, 35 bathrooms, 8 staircases, 3elevators, a clinic, a dentist’s office, a bowling alley, and a movie theater.

About 150 people work in the White House offices, and another 100 people are needed to keepthe White House running.

Congress provides funds to each first family to redecorate and refurnish the family quarters according to its wishes.

The family quarters of theWhite House are rarely photographed. A The Main Building The main building of the White House has four stories.

The ground floor holds a clinic, a kitchen, pantries, and storage facilities, among other rooms.

The state rooms,where the president entertains, meets with dignitaries, and holds ceremonies, are on the first floor.

The private apartments of the president and guest rooms for visitingdignitaries occupy the second floor, and the third floor consists chiefly of family guest rooms and quarters for the staff. A1 Ground Floor Portraits and sculpted busts of the presidents line the ground floor corridor through which visitors enter the White House.

Various sitting rooms and meeting rooms open offthe main corridor; several of them also are used for displays.

The ground-floor library holds books on American history.

The Vermeil Room houses the White Housecollection of gold-plated silver, or vermeil, and portraits of 20th-century first ladies hang on its walls.

The China Room features examples of presidential china from thepresidency of John Adams onward.

The Map Room was originally used by Franklin D.

Roosevelt as a place in which to follow the course of World War II; today it holds acollection of maps and is used for private meetings. The Diplomatic Reception Room is a large, oval-shaped room on the ground floor.

Here the president greets ambassadors and other dignitaries from abroad.

It has anentrance onto the south lawn through which the first family enters the White House.

Wallpaper showing historic views of America lines the walls. A2 First Floor White House guests enter the Executive Mansion on the first floor, through the North Portico.

The formal rooms of state on the first floor, which are open to the public,include the East Room, Blue Room, Red Room, Green Room, and State Dining Room.

The Blue, Red, and Green rooms received their names from the colors used for theirdraperies, wall covering, carpeting, and upholstery during the 1820s and 1830s.

The colors still appear in the furnishing of the rooms. The East Room, the largest room in the White House, is used for big gatherings such as official receptions, ceremonies, performances, and balls.

The first tenant of theWhite House, Abigail Adams, hung the laundry here, and White House children have at times used it for roller skating.

The bodies of assassinated presidents WilliamMcKinley and John F.

Kennedy once lay in state in the East Room. The oval Blue Room is where the president greets guests invited to state dinners.

Centrally located on the south side of the White House, it has a beautiful view overlookingthe south lawn.

The Blue Room contains the oldest original furniture in the White House: chairs and a sofa in the Empire style purchased by James Monroe.

GroverCleveland, the only president to be married in the White House, wed Frances Folsom in the Blue Room.

Presidents and their wives generally favor the Red and Green rooms,situated to the side of the Blue Room, for informal White House gatherings, including teas, coffees, and small dinner parties. The State Dining Room seats as many as 140 guests and is used for formal dinners for visiting heads of states and other dignitaries.

A smaller dining room next to the StateDining Room is used today for small formal dinners.

The first family ate there until the early 1960s, when Jacqueline Kennedy added a family dining room on the secondfloor. A3 The Second Floor The first family’s living quarters are on the second floor of the White House, along with rooms used by important overnight guests.

Offices occupied much of the second flooruntil 1902, when Theodore Roosevelt had the West Wing built.

Roosevelt had six children and needed more room for his young, active family in the main building. Today, the White House family quarters include living rooms, dining room, kitchen, presidential study, and several bedrooms and bathrooms.

Guest quarters on the secondfloor include the Queen’s Bedroom, the Lincoln Bedroom, and the Treaty Room.

At each end of the central hall are sitting areas, a private living room for the first family atthe west end and a living room for guests at the east end. In the center of the second floor, on the south side of the White House, is the sunny Yellow Oval Room.

Past presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman,used it as a study.

Jacqueline Kennedy remodeled it as a sitting room, and it is used today for formal private visits with heads of states and other important guests. Visiting royalty have slept in the room once known as the Rose Room and now called the Queen’s Bedroom.

But today royal visitors and other heads of state generally stayat Blair House, a presidential guest house on Pennsylvania Avenue across the street from the White House. Abraham Lincoln used the room now known as the Lincoln Bedroom as his office and cabinet room.

It was here that he met with Union Army generals during the Civil War(1861-1865) and signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Today, the room is furnished with pieces from Lincoln’s time, including a carved rosewood bed believed to havebeen purchased in 1861 by Mary Todd Lincoln, the president’s wife.

However, Lincoln himself probably never slept in the bed.

Recent presidents have rewarded campaigncontributors and close friends with a night in the Lincoln Bedroom.

Laura Bush, wife of George W.

Bush, worked with the White House curator to restore the room toVictorian splendor in 2004. The Treaty Room, near the Lincoln Bedroom, served as the meeting room for the cabinet from the presidency of Andrew Johnson until the West Wing went up.

After 1902 itbecame a sitting room, sometimes called the Monroe Room.

It has served as a study for the president since Dwight D.

Eisenhower’s time.

The Kennedys named it the TreatyRoom because presidents have signed many important treaties here. A4 Third Floor The third floor was an attic until Teddy Roosevelt moved into the White House.

Roosevelt’s renovation added rooms for storing linens, ironing, and other household needs.The third floor was further expanded during Truman’s presidency.

Today, it contains additional family bedrooms, guest rooms for friends and relatives of the president,quarters for the White House staff, a billiards room, a workout room, and a sun room in which the first family relaxes.

Eisenhower and other presidents have barbequed on apromenade that runs along the edge of the roof. B Executive Offices The president and vice president have offices in the West Wing.

The East Wing houses the offices of the first lady and the White House staff as well as a movie theater.Covered, colonnaded terraces, or pavilions, connect the East Wing and the West Wing with the main building. B1 West Wing. »