Sitting behind a replica Resolute Desk, nine-year-old Sydney Wright posed for the camera like a future US president. “I love it,” she smiled. And what about the dazzling gold appliqués, gold leaf and gold trim surrounding her? “It’s cool.”
Sydney was among a steady stream of visitors on Thursday to The People’s House: A White House Experience, an interactive museum – with an orientation film narrated by The West Wing star Martin Sheen – at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue, just 150 yards from the real thing. Run by the White House Historical Association, the tourist attraction has just unveiled an elaborate overhaul of its full-scale Oval Office to match Donald Trump’s second-term aesthetic, described by the New York Times as a “gilded rococo nightmare”.
Gone is the understated, plain decor of Joe Biden and his predecessors. In its place is a spectacle of two dozen portraits in heavy carved frames, swirling wall onlays, gleaming brass vases and decorative knickknacks crowding nearly every available surface. Barack Obama had pictures of two former presidents on the wall; Biden put up a total of seven paintings. Trump has stacked the walls with historical figures including George Washington, Andrew Jackson and Benjamin Franklin. Ronald Reagan appears twice, while there is only one woman on display: former first lady Jackie Kennedy. A bust of former president Theodore Roosevelt by James Earle Fraser glowers from a bookshelf, flanked by bound volumes of the 26th president’s works. Other books on display include Hawthorne’s Works and Writings of Washington. There are two mirrors and a copy of the Declaration of Independence.
But for all the detail, the people’s house cannot recreate the experience of former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who reportedly entered the Oval Office one day to find Trump in DIY mode, using superglue in an effort to stick gold ornaments to the fireplace. Still, for many tourists arriving in the nation’s capital, this is as close as they will get to the heart of presidential power, especially with the White House currently undergoing extensive demolition and construction work.
Sydney’s father, Drew Wright, a 36-year-old firefighter from Athens, Georgia, said he viewed the room’s additions as “paying homage to the people who laid the pathway that we have to raise our children in this great nation”. Asked about the goldening, Wright, who voted for Trump twice, replied: “There’s always going to be critics. There’s always going to be haters. Just because they’re the loudest ones in the room doesn’t mean they’re right. I don’t know what it looked like before but I think it’s a pretty classic look.”
Cheri Lujan Hamilton, 54, the chief clerk of the New Mexico state senate, also likes what Trump has done with the place. “I’m kind of in awe,” she said. “I was disappointed we couldn’t get into the White House for a tour so this is the next best thing.” Taking in all the gold, Hamilton remarked: “It’s grand. I like everything that’s grand. I do think all the gold around the doors is maybe a little too much. But I like it on the top.”
Pedro Robles, 50, a police officer from Nashville, Tennessee, called the replica “pretty cool” and disputed the notion that the gilding crosses into bad taste. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t think it looks tacky.”
Such opinions would be music to the ears of Trump who, when asked by Time magazine what he would miss most about the White House after he leaves, answered: “This beautiful room that nobody should be allowed to rip down. The Oval Office.” A team of specialised designers visited Trump’s actual office while he was away to ensure authenticity. They used 3D scanning in Indianapolis and crafted hand-carved gold frames in California, while teams in Canada and Virginia worked on replicas of vases and other tabletop pieces. The replica transition took one week with more than 25 crew members onsite. They used laser levels and temporary adhesive to fix items to the walls, checking their work for accuracy against renderings of the actual office before nailing many adornments to the walls.
Matthew Costello, chief education officer at the White House Historical Association, said in an email: “As we have seen throughout White House history, each president transitions the Oval Office according to his own tastes. It is our hope that through the evolutions of our Oval Office replica, people will be inspired to learn more about and even see themselves in White House history.” There is, however, one key difference between the real Oval Office and its imitator. While the actual workspace relies on gilded gold leaf, the museum opted for a specialised gold paint solution to protect against chipping or other wear and tear from visitors.
The transformation provides a microcosm of an aggressive campaign by Trump to remake Washington DC in his own image. Beyond the Oval Office makeover, Trump knocked down the East Wing to build a $400m ballroom, paved over the Rose Garden’s traditional grass lawn to build a white stone patio reminiscent of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, added a row of presidential portraits that replace Biden with an autopen and constructed a granite helipad on the south lawn. He also initiated a troubled overhaul of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, proposed a towering 250ft triumphal arch near Arlington national cemetery and threatened to tear down the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts if it does not bear his name.
Washington purists and architecture critics have recoiled at Trump’s ostentatious tastes. But Carl Wilkerson, 73, a retired marine wearing a US Marine Corps T-shirt, offered an impassioned defense of presidential swagger, saying: “We need to have a little bling-bling, man. This is the United States of America. This is the greatest country on the planet, so we need to show it off.” Drawing on his time overseas, Wilkerson, from Hereford, Arizona, argued that US presidential architecture had fallen behind the competition, saying: “You go over there in the east. He’s walked in their palaces and it’s like, boom. It pops. Their palaces outdid the White House 10 to one. We need to step up our game a little bit. We are the greatest country on the planet. So you need to act like it – and look like it.
