97 Fun Facts About The White House

What is the street address of the White House?

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. The avenue was laid out to link the president's house with the Capitol, which is why newly sworn-in presidents traditionally parade along it.

Who was the first president to live in the White House?

John Adams moved in on November 1, 1800, and the next day wrote a blessing on the house that was later carved into one of its mantels.

For the ten years before the White House was ready, the president lived in a mansion in which city?

Philadelphia was the temporary capital from 1790 to 1800 while the new federal city on the Potomac was being built.

Which president first opened the White House to public tours?

Thomas Jefferson. After his second inauguration in March 1805 much of the crowd followed him home from the Capitol, and he received them in the oval reception room.

Why was the White House first coated in whitewash in 1798?

To protect the stone from frost: the porous walls soaked up water, so a lime whitewash sealed them. The story that white paint hid scorch marks left by British troops is a myth.

Which garden beside the Oval Office is often used for presidential announcements and press events?

The Rose Garden was redesigned in the early 1960s as a setting for outdoor ceremonies, which is why so many announcements are made there.

About how many rooms does the White House residence have?

132 rooms, by the White House's own count. The total grew with the house: a third floor was added in 1927, and two basement levels were dug out around 1950.

The Oval Office, the Cabinet Room and the Situation Room sit in which part of the White House complex?

The West Wing went up in 1902 as a temporary office building, and it has never come down.

What is the name of the helicopter that flies the president to and from the White House?

Marine One is a call sign, not one aircraft: any Marine Corps helicopter takes it while the president is aboard. Its squadron, HMX-1, began in 1947 as an experimental unit for testing helicopters.

Which president officially gave the White House its name?

Theodore Roosevelt officially established 'White House' as the building's name in 1901 by having it printed on presidential stationery. Before that it was called the 'President's House' or 'Executive Mansion.'

The Easter Egg Roll moved to the White House lawn in 1878 after Congress banned egg rolling where?

The Capitol grounds. After the 1876 roll tore up the Capitol lawn, Congress banned using the grounds as a playground; in 1878 the children were welcomed onto the White House grounds instead.

On which part of the White House grounds does the president's helicopter land?

The South Lawn. It has also hosted the Easter Egg Roll since 1878, when Rutherford B. Hayes opened the grounds to children on Easter Monday.

What material is the White House primarily built from?

Sandstone from Aquia Creek in Virginia: enslaved workers quarried and cut the rough blocks, and Scottish masons then dressed and laid them.

Banquets for visiting heads of government are traditionally held in which White House room, which seats 140?

The State Dining Room seats as many as 140 because a grand staircase was torn out in 1902 to enlarge it.

Which event led the Secret Service to close the avenue outside the White House in May 1995?

The Oklahoma City bombing. A month after the truck-bomb attack, the Treasury secretary ordered traffic off the avenue in front of the White House, and the Secret Service closed it.

Who designed the original White House?

James Hoban won the 1792 design competition, then was called back to rebuild the house after British troops burned it.

Which president chose the site of the White House?

George Washington chose the site and approved the design, yet never lived there: he left office in 1797 and died in 1799, a year before the house was ready.

During which war was the White House burned by British forces?

The War of 1812: British troops burned the house in August 1814, and the Madisons never lived there again. The rebuilt mansion reopened under James Monroe in 1817.

First Lady Dolley Madison is famed for saving which object as the British approached in 1814?

A portrait of Washington by Gilbert Stuart: she ordered it saved, and the steward, the gardener and Paul Jennings, an enslaved servant, were among those who took it down and sent it to safety.

Where did the Truman family live from 1949 to 1952 while the White House was closed for building work?

Blair House, just across the street, was the Trumans' home for more than three years, and in 1950 two gunmen tried to shoot their way in to kill the president.

Which room in the White House is the largest?

The East Room is the largest room in the house, used for balls, press conferences and presidential funerals; one president's children are even known to have roller-skated across its floor.

What significant renovation took place at the White House from 1948 to 1952?

A complete gutting of the interior. The rooms were dismantled inside the old stone walls and rebuilt on a steel frame; the old timbers were made into panelling for the Library.

Which president had the first Oval Office built in 1909, his first year in office?

William Howard Taft wanted to sit at the centre of his staff, so he put his new oval office in the middle of the office wing.

Which floor of the White House holds the first family's private quarters?

Second: the floor has been the family's own since 1902, when the president's offices moved out of the residence.

Which first lady led a major historical restoration of the White House in the early 1960s?

Jacqueline Kennedy hunted down period furniture and art for the state rooms, then showed them off herself in a televised tour broadcast in February 1962.

The Situation Room was created in 1961 after which failed operation exposed poor intel?

The Bay of Pigs invasion. After the 1961 fiasco, the president insisted that intelligence reports feed straight into the White House, and the round-the-clock room was set up to do it.

Which oval room on the White House's State Floor holds the official Christmas tree each December?

The Blue Room only turned blue in 1837, when Martin Van Buren redecorated what had simply been the oval salon.

Who is the only president to have married in the White House?

Grover Cleveland wed 21-year-old Frances Folsom in the Blue Room on June 2, 1886; John Tyler and Woodrow Wilson also married while in office, but not at the White House.

Which part of the White House complex was torn down in 2025 to make way for a new ballroom?

The East Wing, long home to the first lady's offices, was demolished in October 2025, and the White House's small family cinema went with it.

An indoor swimming pool was built at the White House in 1933 for which president?

Franklin D. Roosevelt swam to ease his polio, and a New York Daily News campaign raised the money for the pool, which opened in June 1933.

Which president's ghost is the most commonly reported apparition at the White House?

Abraham Lincoln: Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands is said to have answered a knock at her bedroom door in 1942 and found him standing there in frock coat and top hat.

Which White House room was once the president's office and Cabinet Room?

The Lincoln Bedroom was Abraham Lincoln's office, and despite the name he never slept in it: the huge bed there was bought by Mary Todd Lincoln for a guest room.

Which president kept a flock of sheep on the White House lawn during World War I?

Woodrow Wilson's flock, 48 sheep at its peak, cut the grass to free up gardeners for the war effort, and its wool was auctioned for the Red Cross.

Which first lady planted the White House Kitchen Garden and added a beehive beside it?

Michelle Obama broke ground in March 2009 with pupils from a local elementary school, and the harvest fed the first family and a kitchen serving the city's homeless.

Which president, a keen bowler, had a single-lane bowling alley installed at the White House?

Richard Nixon was the keenest bowler among the presidents; an earlier set of lanes, a gift to Harry Truman, had been moved out to the office building next door in 1955.

Which item from the Cabinet Room may departing cabinet secretaries buy as a keepsake?

A chair: each secretary may buy the one they sat in, which carries a brass plate naming the post. Seats are ranked by the age of each department, so the oldest sit nearest the president.

Which president's 1927 roof rebuild gave the White House its third floor?

Calvin Coolidge. The 1927 rebuild turned the attic into a full third floor, and the Coolidges moved out to a mansion on Dupont Circle while the work went on.

The White House is believed to be modelled on Leinster House, a duke's mansion in which European capital?

Dublin's Leinster House, built for the Earl of Kildare in the 1740s, now seats the Irish parliament; the White House's architect had studied in the city.

The White House's underground bunker, where key staff sheltered on September 11, was first built during which conflict?

World War II. The first bunker was dug to shelter the president from air raids on the capital; Vice President Cheney was taken down to it on September 11, 2001.

What famous pet did Calvin Coolidge keep at the White House?

A raccoon named Rebecca. A Mississippi supporter sent her to be served for Thanksgiving dinner; the Coolidges kept her as a pet instead and walked her on a leash.

The White House and its grounds cover just over how many acres?

18 acres. The fenced grounds form part of President's Park and hold the North and South Lawns, the Rose Garden, the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden and a tennis court.

What did President Truman add behind the columns of the White House's South Portico?

A balcony, built outside the family's rooms over the objections of the Commission of Fine Arts, whose chairman wrote to Truman to oppose it.

The Resolute desk used by recent presidents was an 1880 gift from which monarch?

Queen Victoria. The desk was built from the oak of HMS Resolute, abandoned in the Arctic in 1854 during the Franklin search, salvaged by an American whaler and returned to Britain in 1856.

Which architecture firm's 1902 expansion moved the executive offices out of the residence?

Charles McKim ran the job himself, stripping out the Tiffany screen and other Victorian additions and giving the president's large family more living space.

The ground-floor Vermeil Room houses a collection of what?

Gilded silver, known as vermeil: Margaret Thompson Biddle left her collection to the White House in 1956, and the room doubles as a ladies' sitting room on formal occasions.

About how many household staff, overseen by the chief usher, run the White House residence?

About 90. Butlers, chefs, florists, electricians and plumbers all answer to the chief usher, a title left over from the days of ushering callers in to see the president.

In 1970, the White House's indoor swimming pool was covered over to create which room?

Press briefing room. It was built over the pool to cope with the growing demand for television news, and the empty basin still lies beneath the floor.

Which bird gets a ceremonial pardon at the White House each November, a custom made permanent in 1989?

A turkey is spared at each ceremony and sent to live out its natural life at a park or university instead of becoming Thanksgiving dinner.

Which animals grazed the White House lawn under Woodrow Wilson, sparing wartime manpower from mowing?

Sheep kept the grass short, and their wool was auctioned off to raise money for the American Red Cross.

A view of the White House has appeared on the back of which US banknote since 1928?

The $20 bill has shown the building on its reverse ever since the note shrank to its modern small size in 1928.

What did Jimmy Carter add to the White House roof, only for the next administration to remove it?

Solar panels heated water for the house until they were taken down in the 1980s. A newer set fitted in 2013 was the first to power the president's living quarters.

Which 1996 blockbuster about hostile aliens blew up a ten-foot model of the White House for one shot?

Independence Day needed a week of planning and 40 explosive charges for the blast, shot in forced perspective so the model looked full size.

Under the 44th president, the White House tennis court gained lines and removable gear for which sport?

Basketball could then be played full court, thanks to painted court lines and baskets that lift out when tennis is wanted.

Bo and Sunny, White House dogs of the 2010s picked partly for a child's allergies, were which breed?

Portuguese water dog coats shed very little, so the breed is considered hypoallergenic. Bo arrived as a gift, and Sunny joined him in August 2013.

What did Dwight Eisenhower have built at the White House in 1954, only to be plagued there by squirrels?

A putting green suited the avid golfer, who had the squirrels trapped and taken off the grounds.

Which president fled to a hotel in 1829 when 20,000 well-wishers crowded his White House inauguration party?

Andrew Jackson's rowdy reception grew out of a custom of presidential open houses, which lasted at inaugurations until 1885.

In 1948 a leg of what object crashed through the floor of Margaret Truman's White House sitting room?

A piano leg went right through to the ceiling of the room below, in a house soon declared to be in imminent danger of collapse.

Which stray tuxedo cat, adopted after jumping into Chelsea Clinton's arms, lived at the White House from 1993 to 2001?

Socks shared the residence for more than three years with Buddy, a chocolate Labrador he never learned to tolerate.

Which name for the White House was used in official contexts before "White House" became its formal title?

Executive Mansion remained the formal name for decades, even though the public was recorded calling the building by its colour as early as 1811.

The oak timbers of the White House's Resolute desk came from a British ship abandoned in 1854 in which region?

The Arctic was where HMS Resolute had been searching for Sir John Franklin and his lost expedition when her crew left her behind.

Which architectural style, rooted in the ideas of Vitruvius and Palladio, was chosen for the White House?

Neoclassical lines run through the whole building, and its ground floor is rusticated in the Palladian fashion.

Which agency within the Department of the Interior maintains the White House and its surrounding grounds?

National Park Service staff look after the property as part of President's Park, which also takes in the public squares to its north and south.

Members of the public who want to tour the White House are told to send their request through whom?

Their member of Congress is the official channel for requests, and the tour itself takes in the public rooms on the State Floor.

The park facing the north front of the White House was renamed in 1824 for which foreign general?

Marquis de Lafayette was the French aristocrat whose part in the American Revolutionary War made him a hero on both sides of the Atlantic.

Which breed were Him and Her, the White House dogs Lyndon Johnson was photographed lifting by their ears?

Beagles named Him and Her became national news when the photograph of the president hoisting them stirred up controversy.

In 2011 the White House kitchen became the first known to brew what on the premises, using honey from its hives?

Beer had never knowingly been brewed in the building before, and the president bought the home-brewing kit with his own money.

A 1917 newspaper hoax by H. L. Mencken falsely credited Millard Fillmore with giving the White House its first what?

Bathtub lore in Mencken's article was invented from start to finish, yet he later complained that it kept being reprinted as fact.

British troops who burned the White House in 1814 were partly avenging the American looting of which Canadian capital?

York, the provincial capital of Upper Canada, was later renamed Toronto, and American forces had looted it in April 1813.

Which planner of the federal capital drew up a presidential palace several times larger than the White House as built?

Pierre L'Enfant made the President's House a major feature of his 1791 city plan, but he was dismissed before building began and the design went to a competition.

Masons from which country built the White House walls and carved the stone garlands above its north entrance?

Scotland supplied the stonemasons, part of an immigrant workforce that also cut the fish-scale pattern beneath the window hoods.

Culinary specialists from which branch of the military staff the White House Mess, a small ground-floor restaurant?

The Navy supplies the cooks, while the restaurant itself is operated by the Presidential Food Service.

The first visiting head of state honoured with a White House state dinner, in 1874, was the king of which islands?

Hawaii was then an independent kingdom, and King David Kalakaua was in the country on a state visit that ran into 1875.

Which reigning British monarch stayed at the White House in 1939 on the first royal visit of its kind to North America?

King George VI and his consort went on from the capital to the president's private estate at Hyde Park.

Which president's daughter Susan held her high school senior prom at the White House in 1975?

Gerald Ford's daughter was a senior at the Holton-Arms School in Maryland, and her class of 1975 danced in one of the state rooms.

Which president saw a four-alarm fire tear through his White House offices on Christmas Eve 1929?

Herbert Hoover and his aides could not move back in until April 1930. The blaze began in an attic packed with some 200,000 government pamphlets.

Which 2013 film stars Forest Whitaker as a man who spends 34 years on the White House domestic staff?

The Butler is loosely based on the life of Eugene Allen, who worked in the residence for decades.

Which 2013 action film has a disgraced Secret Service agent fight North Korean-led attackers who seize the White House?

Olympus Has Fallen was one of two films that year built around an assault on the building, and its rival arrived three months later and underperformed.

Which president died at the White House in 1850, only 16 months into his term, of a sudden stomach illness?

Zachary Taylor is one of only two presidents to die in the house itself, and the other had served barely a month in 1841.

Nellie, the teenage daughter of which president, married an Englishman in a White House wedding in 1874?

Ulysses S. Grant's daughter had moved in at 13 and fascinated the public as the first teenage girl in the house for years.

Which bachelor president relied on his niece Harriet Lane to serve as White House hostess for four years?

James Buchanan is the only president never to have married, and his popular niece wore dress styles that others copied.

Which president moved into the partly rebuilt White House in October 1817, three years after British troops burned it?

James Monroe also presided over the next big change to the building, the columned south portico constructed in 1824.

Which first lady ordered 4,370 pieces of scarlet-banded Lenox china for White House state dinners?

Nancy Reagan picked the striking red because it was her favourite colour, and the order gave 19-piece place settings for 220 guests.

The Silent Sentinels, the first group to picket the White House, stood outside it from 1917 demanding what?

Votes for women were the goal of a vigil that lasted some two and a half years, with many of the picketers harassed, arrested and jailed.

Which 1915 D. W. Griffith epic was screened inside the White House for President Woodrow Wilson?

The Birth of a Nation was shown on February 18, 1915, though it was not the first film there, since two earlier presidents had allowed screenings.

Which White House dog is credited as author of a 1990 book that topped the national nonfiction bestseller list?

Millie, an English springer spaniel, earned a Guinness World Records entry in 1991 for the best-selling book by a canine author.

What did Amy Carter have on the White House grounds for sleepovers, with Secret Service agents on watch nearby?

A treehouse hosted her slumber parties while agents kept watch from the ground, and indoors she roller-skated through one of the grandest state rooms.

Which pope became the first to visit the White House, greeted there by Jimmy Carter in October 1979?

John Paul II made the call during a tour of the United States, a country Paul VI had visited before him without ever going to the president's home.

The Zero Milestone, meant as the starting point for measuring US roads, stands on which park south of the White House?

The Ellipse has held the monument at its north edge since 1923, and a temporary marker was dedicated there in 1919 to send off an Army convoy bound for San Francisco.

Which cabinet department has its headquarters immediately east of the White House, inside the same fenced compound?

Treasury flanks the house on the east, balanced on the west by the office building named for Dwight Eisenhower.

Which church across the square north of the White House is nicknamed the Church of the Presidents?

St. John's has welcomed every sitting president at least once since it was built in 1816, beginning with James Madison.

Which designer supplied a fifty-foot jewelled glass screen for the White House during Chester Arthur's redecoration?

Louis Comfort Tiffany's screen lasted only two decades, because a 1902 renovation removed it along with every other Victorian addition.

Where did James Madison live and ratify a peace treaty after British troops burned the White House?

The Octagon was lent by its owner, John Tayloe III, for six months, and the Treaty of Ghent was ratified in its upstairs study.

Who in 1842 became the first presidential wife to die at the White House while serving as first lady?

Letitia Tyler had been too unwell to act as hostess, so she delegated those duties to her daughter-in-law Priscilla.

What stolen vehicle did Frank Eugene Corder crash onto the White House grounds in 1994, dying instantly?

A light plane came down twenty years after an earlier scare, when a stolen Army helicopter landed on the same grounds without authorization.

At the White House Easter Egg Roll, children race by pushing an egg through the grass with what?

A long-handled spoon is the tool of the race, which is held each Easter Monday for children aged 13 and younger.

What must be taken down each year so the nearly 20-foot official White House Christmas tree can fit its room?

The chandelier is crystal, and the tree that takes its place is donated each year by the National Christmas Tree Association.

Pauline Wayne, who freely grazed the White House lawn from 1910 to 1913, was what kind of animal?

A cow, and a Holstein at that, she replaced an earlier animal that had supplied the first family's milk, and once went missing for two days on a train journey.