Harry Truman’s Extreme Home Makeover

If you liked this article, check out the book he mentioned, "The Hidden White House" (Macmillan/Thomas Dunne 2013). It's got all this and more!

The project almost jot President Truman Assassinated.

While he was at home in the Blair house, two Puerto Rican nationalists made their attack as described in this wikiipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Harry_S._Truman

"President Truman had awakened from a nap to the sound of gunfire and looked outside his second floor window. Torresola was 31 feet (9.4 m) away from Truman's window.[10][11] Secret Service agents shouted at Truman to get away from the window."

Only one secret service agent stood between the last attacker and the President.

Living not that far from the event, I remember the bullet hole from that attack was preserved in the window of a drug store several blocks away.

The East Room ceiling had been problematic for many years. As early as 1806, prior to the burning of the building, it was reported that the ceiling had "given way." In the 1902 renovation by McKim, Mead, and White, the ceiling and the rooms above were rebuilt with supporting steel beams. Unfortunately the firm's vision of the State Dining Room as a dark panelled early neoclassical room had fallen out of fashion by the 1950s and the oak was painted green. Mrs. Kennedy overpainted this with white and had the silver plated lighting fixtures gilt.

One can get a very good picture of President Truman by reading Dean Acheson's immensely readable book, "Present At The Creation."

Harry Truman was a man of tremendous common sense, thoughtfulness and judgement.

Thanks, Harry!

My father told met that when he was a boy, he received pieces of the White House, in the mail, from the renovation. I wish he still had them!

I'm not sure if it was an offer made to school children, but it sounds like he initiated the request.

Wasn't Bush in Shreveport on 9/11?

NYT ed.: He got back to the White House by evening.

". . .as with many home improvement ventures, harsh economics. . .collided with Truman's grandest hopes." As one can read on any entry in Google, the hopes and dreams of all humankind come to naught. The question that must be asked in the wake of the housing fiasco, mortgage scandal, and complete and utter obliteration of the housing and real estate markets is "Why does this happen in America?" From The White House to my house, the achievement of the "American Dream" in the form of some kind of "dream house." is the biggest sham and scam ever perpetrated upon the American people. The American Dream began to end in the early 1960's. The idea of a "dream home or house" or a "dream anything" is just smoke, mirrors, hype, marketing, graft and grift and outright cheating and lies brought to the citizenry by unscrupulous business enterprises.

That's wonderful to hear, Truman's contribution to preserving the White House. He had comment sense and the middle class set of mind. He was a fine man and served us well.

If Harry S. Truman were alive today, he would have decided to move the White House to Kansas and send the Supreme Court to Arizona.

The problem with our federal government is that it is a neighborhood that special interests can access with too much ease of navigation.

If you spread the branches, the trunk might grow stronger.

Truman had no idea about the coming information and communication revolution, otherwise he would have moved the place to a safe distance.

Perhaps they should have left it burned black, like in 1812?

Harry Truman was a dedicated Freemason, and in addition to serving as Worshipful Master of his Blue Lodge, in 1940 he was elected Grand Master of Masons in Missouri. During the White House restoration, he was notified that workers had uncovered bricks in the basement foundation that carried strange markings. Truman went to investigate and supposedly got down on his hands and knees and began to excavate the bricks with a trowel. He found what he had suspected: the markings were unique Masonic "marks" -- the mark of individual operative Masons who had worked on the original building. In ancient days, these distinctive marks (sort of like a signature) were how a stonemason got paid. The stonemason would be given a blueprint of a stone to be carved, and when he was done, he would present the finished item and the blueprint to an overseer of the work, or Master Mason. If the work properly conformed to the blueprint, and the marks on te stone and the blueprint matched, he would be paid. Truman found 49 of the stones, and he sent each Grand Lodge one stone (48 states at the time, plus the District of Columbia), and a personal note. One such stone is on public display today, along with Truman's letter, at the library and museum of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, One North Broad St., Philadelphia, PA. Also on display there is the personal Masonic apron of George Washington. But that's another story.

Thanks to Harry S. Truman for preserving the location and the exterior of the White House. Thanks to Jacqueline Kennedy for having the foresight and the commitment to presenting the White House in a better light. Maybe it is now time to deal with the bathroom off the Treaty Room!

So what you are telling us is that the White House is effectively ('52 vs '55) about the same age as Disneyland? When you consider the number of animatronic occupants it has had, the similarities become even more striking.

Fascinating story, Mr. Beschloss. And let's pause here to thank Jackie Kennedy, once again, for her interest in preservation. It was Ms. Kennedy who was the strongest voice in the effort to save Penn Station, a step that began the broader preservation movement nationwide.
Now, with the scaffolding up around the Capitol Building we see the effects clearly. The old cast iron detail needed work, and the Architect of the Capitol has addressed it. The Washington Monument has been repaired.
Now if we could only do something about the Congress. Replacement would be acceptable in this case.

I worked in the House during the Eisenhower Administration and a popular story that circulated was how President Truman climbed out that bathroom window, made his way to the other side of the Treasury building to a theater across the street. The Secret Service was alerted only when the ticket seller called to ask if the President was in the White House. That always puts them on high alert but they assured her that, "No, the President is in his office". After a spell, the agent stationed outside the office thought it strange he hadn't heard any sounds in quite a while. After an initial panicked search, the agents indeed found Truman sitting in the middle of the theater. He related he just wanted to see how long it would take them to find him.

Thank you for this article: so interesting. Now I'm going to look for more photos on the web.

I doubt any of the rooms are a simulation of what John Adams knew! His White House was burned to a shell in the war of 1812. The interiors had been changed many times since. Chester Arthur hired Associate Architects, including Louis Comfort Tiffany, to install decor that would now be much appreciated, but which was ripped out by Teddy Roosevelt, who hired McKim Mead and White to build the expansion that houses the Oval office.

My dear friends father was a new lawyer in DC at the time of the restoration. He worked for his uncle's firm. His uncle sent him to obtain some of the old bricks from the White House to be used for gifts for his clients. The bricks were stored in the lavatory. My friends father noticed that the pile of bricks was getting smaller and smaller, so he replaced the missing White House bricks with other non-White House bricks. He was pretty certain none of the brick receiving clients were ever the wiser.

Don't forget one example of restoration that went well beyond preserving the literal original-- the balcony overlooking the south lawn.

Truman got a lot of heat over it, but I think he justified it by saying that Jefferson had thought it a good idea. Before that was put up, it was necessary to use huge canvas awnings over the first-story windows in the summer to create even a little shade. It's a much cleaner look without it, and adds what is supposedly a very nice place to relax to the residence.

If the chandelier had dangled and the piano had punched through the floor 30 years after it actually did, the presidential mansion would most certainly be a separate 20th century structure. I admire Truman too, but politically correct historic preservation in 1981 would not have tolerated Truman's project, quite correctly.

The loss of the actual White House where so much of our early history took place (think of Andrew Jackson's inauguration celebration with the front doors wide open and his backwoods supporters charging up and down the creaky wooden stairs) is deeply tragic. In 1981 a new concrete and steel mansion would likely have been constructed adjacent to the historic one, with the legacy mansion preserved as a sacred artifact maybe integrated with the new mansion in some master plan.

In academic principle that outcome would have been, and would still be seen as an exemplary "win-win." The American public would have been spared the trauma of demolition. The nation would still have its intellectual integrity, one of its greatest shrines intact, and an important site where the continuing evolution of the republic could be read architecturally. Washington, of course, is not a place where anyone expects intellectual integrity. Finally, just a reminder... that mid-century bathroom now carries considerable historic significance; it must be meticulously preserved. Thank you Mr. Beschloss, once again for keeping us aware of who we really are.

President Truman is one of my favorite Americans
On November 1, 1950 Blair House was almost the sight of a national tragedy
On this day, Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempted to assassinate President Harry S. Truman at the Blair House in Washington, D.C. Truman escaped unscathed.

In the autumn of 1950, the White House was being renovated and President Truman and his family were living in the nearby Blair House on Pennsylvania Avenue. On the afternoon of November 1, Truman and his wife were upstairs when they heard a commotion—and gunshots—coming from the front steps of the house. Indeed, the pair of would-be assassins had strolled up to the front door of Blair House and opened fire. They never made it past the entry steps, however, due to the quick reaction of police officers and guards. Secret Service Agent Leslie Coffelt was mortally wounded in the ensuing melee, but not before he managed to kill Torresola. Collazo later revealed to police just how poorly planned the assassination attempt was: the assailants were unsure if Truman would even be in the house when they launched their attack at 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

Apparently unfazed by the attempt on his life, Truman kept his scheduled appointments for the day. “A President has to expect these things,” he remarked dryly. Oscar Collazo was sentenced to death, but in an admirable act of forgiveness on July 24, 1952, Truman commuted the sentence to life imprisonment.

It wasn't just cost alone that cost the White House much of its historicity. The general contractor, John McShain Inc., did precious little to attempt to retain the historic plaster moldings, paneling, wallpaper, or other elements of the 1951 White House. Truman, who almost daily visited the work site, either believed what he was told by McShain or didn't pay attention to the destructiveness of the renovation.

In January 1951, with the renovation now a year old, John McShain jokingly told Truman that he could move back into the White House in the summer. Truman for some reason held him to that promise. When it became clear in late fall 1951 that the deadline would not be met, Truman angrily and arbitrarily set a new deadline of the end of March 1952.

It was the rush to finish the White House, as much as the lack of funds, that meant few furnishings for the Executive Residence could be found and which forced the decor of the Executive Residence to be "bought off the rack" (so to speak) and look so shoddy.

Interestingly, Jackie Kennedy's furnishings largely drew on antiques already in the White House collection. Truman (and Eisenhower) could have looked to the White House collection for the same, and simply didn't.

Another reason that Harry Truman is my favorite among United States Presidents.

This seems to be the perfect metaphor for our nation. The facade looks identical while the underpinnings are rebuilt, new, and different. This can be spun in honor or in criticism of the nation. I tend to find more of the first. We've maintained the historical memory and rebuilt the structure to deal with a changing world and population. We may have lost some antiques but the piano won't fall through the floor.

Besides the North Koreans having subs that can shoot missiles now, I always thought the country would be better served by having the residence away from the coastline and out of the middle of a city. Someplace that can be easily defended from land, sea, or air.

In David Mcollough's famous book "Truman", he describes Blair House at that time "as a place only Harry Truman would live in" Meaning it was very modest just like the man himself. Thank you Harry for rebuilding the White House and for all of your great service for our United States.

Excellent post per usual, Mr. Beschloss. Many of us were vaguely familiar with the story of the mid-20th Century White House renovations and the role played by Harry Truman and Jacqueline Kennedy, but it's nice to learn more detail, things we either never knew or forgot. Over fifty years after the Kennedy-era makeover, it does seem like we're not far from the time when more public work will need to be done to preserve the White House for at least the duration of this century. Truman's decision to keep it where it is was one of the many great services he gave to his country.