Trump
or Hillary: who will redecorate the White House better?
Will
it be Clinton’s floral upholstery or The Donald’s gilded thrones?
OCTOBER 27, 2016 by:
Carl Wilkinson
When Americans go to
the polls on November 8 they will not just be choosing the 45th US
president and leader of the free world. They’ll also be voting for
the next redecorator-in-chief of the White House.
The choice couldn’t
be more stark; the leading candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald
Trump, do not see eye to eye on interior design. Trump favours gold,
marble and mirrors; Clinton loves classic styles and a general
comfortable elegance. Trump lives in a gaudy triplex on the top of
Trump Tower, which opened in 1983; Clinton in an 1889 Dutch colonial
house in Chappaqua, 35 miles north of New York.
In 2015, Trump told
People magazine: “If I were elected I would probably look at the
White House, and maybe touch it up a little bit. But the White House
is a special place you don’t want to do too much touching.” Yet
given The Donald’s predilection for gold — and unsolicited
“touching” — how much is too much? The developer in him must be
eyeing the unused acres around (and above) 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
and dreaming big.
The White House has
been the official residence of the President of the United States
since 1800, when John Adams moved in. Theodore Roosevelt created the
West Wing in 1902 and his successor William Howard Taft added the
Oval Office. Harry S Truman then had the place rebuilt some 40 years
later when it became structurally unsound. Presidents also played
fast and loose with the contents — flogging them as they saw fit.
It wasn’t until Jacqueline Kennedy founded the Fine Arts Committee
in 1961 that the building and its treasures were protected.
Today, the house is
divided into two parts, explains Kaki Hockersmith, interior designer
to Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. “The ground and the first floor
are called the State floors and fall under the supervision of the
Committee for the Preservation of the White House. The second- and
third-floor private residence is secured — you don’t go there
unless you have permission. There are really no rules per se about
the decor of those floors.”
So, will the next
four years be marked by a seamless transition of understated taste or
the kind of rip-it-all-out renovation project that makes for great
reality TV, but horrendous interiors?
While Trump’s
triplex speaks of his 1980s phase (throne chairs, golden candy
bowls), one need only look to Trump Turnberry, the recently reopened
golf hotel in Scotland, for a glimpse of his current tastes. Trump
threw $200m at remodelling the hotel. The rooms boast French-style
gilded beds, and the marble bathrooms have gold fittings. The
exclusive suite in the Turnberry Lighthouse is just as plush
(“tastefully decorated in rich mahogany, gold leaf”) and the
building itself is painted white with gold details. A hint of things
to come at the White House?
Clinton has more
modest tastes. As First Lady she undertook a fairly extensive
redecoration of the White House, even writing a book about its
history. She also updated the private quarters, which hadn’t been
touched for a decade or more, adding a breakfast nook where the
family would eat together, daughter Chelsea could do her homework —
and Bill could often be found watching basketball games on TV with
the butlers.
“It’s probably
not widely known,” says Hockersmith, “but the Clintons really
like Modern art so I arranged loans of a Kandinsky, a de Kooning, and
a Rothko. They all hung on the second and third floors.” Hillary
also established a series of sculpture exhibitions in the grounds
with work by Isamu Noguchi, Georgia O’Keeffe and Alexander Calder.
“I think that if we had Hillary in the White House that’s one of
the things that would be very much reflected in her choices, an
emphasis on fine art.”
What Trump will do
in the garden is as yet unclear; perhaps he could follow Sir Winston
Churchill’s example at his residence Chartwell and take up
bricklaying (he loves building walls, after all).
Traditionally, the
redecoration has been overseen by the First Lady as honorary chair of
the Committee for the Preservation of the White House. Trump’s wife
Melania, a Slovenian ex-model, has in the past been photographed
wheeling a golden pram about the Trump apartment, so art works could
go a bit Jeff Koons. However, she often plays second fiddle to
Trump’s daughter Ivanka — the executive vice-president of
development and acquisitions at The Trump Organization, who recently
completed the transformation of the Old Post Office in Washington, DC
into a hotel. Again there are gold accents and large chandeliers
(Trumps love chandeliers).
Whether Bill would
take on the role is unclear. It’s hard to imagine that as First
Dude he’d be picking out colour schemes. Especially given that he
once revealed to Oprah that it was Hillary who had chosen the floral
upholstery at their Chappaqua house and that his man-cave featured
Amazonian rainsticks.
Whoever gets the gig
will have access to the White House’s extensive furniture
collection stored in a climate-controlled facility in Riverdale,
Maryland. “It’s amazing,” says Hockersmith. “All the chairs
are in one area, all the beds in another area, tables in another. All
the rugs were up in a loft and you had to climb a ladderlike stairway
to look at them.” Think Ikea, only with priceless antiques.
Other nicknacks are
kept around the White House. “There are all these hidey-holes,”
says Hockersmith. “There are panels in the Vermeil Room and behind
those walls there are pop-open doors with shelves full of silver
pieces and candlesticks.” The art collection is stored in a
subterranean basement.
George Bush and
Barack Obama in the Oval Office in 2008 © REX/Shutterstock
Perhaps the most
visible signs of a new administration’s style can be found in the
Oval Office. “It is an extraordinary visual symbol of the identity
of every administration and so it tends to be etched in everyone’s
sensibilities,” says interior designer Michael S Smith, who updated
the private residence and the Oval Office for President Barack Obama.
“You inherit a lot of things. And people respond to everything you
do to it. Despite the fact the colour changes, the essential
architectural impact doesn’t.”
When Clinton took
over from George HW Bush in 1993 he replaced the curtains and rug and
added a casting of Rodin’s “The Thinker”. “Bill Clinton was a
young, energetic and active president and he wanted his office to
express that exuberant, bold style,” says Hockersmith. “He wanted
patriotic colours, hence the military blues, reds and golds. I found
that awesome painting of a flag in the rain which I think is still
where I hung it on inauguration day.”
In 2001, George W
Bush replaced Clinton’s blue rug with one featuring a sunburst
design created by his wife Laura. “The interesting thing about this
rug and why I like it in here,” Bush told a reporter in 2006, “is
because I told Laura one thing. I said, ‘Look, I can’t pick the
colours and all that. But make it say ‘optimistic person’.”
Obama eventually replaced the rug in 2010 with one bearing quotations
from four former presidents and Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
“The president
loves text and is a very accomplished writer,” says Smith, who
designed it, “so we had the idea of having this carpet with these
quotes on.” He also borrowed models of inventions from the
Smithsonian to reflect American ingenuity and technological
advancement and replaced the traditional bouquet of flowers on the
coffee table with a wooden bowl of apples. “Obama may eat one or
two a day,” he says, “but people actually take them as a memento
of having been in the Oval Office, which is charming.” What might
Trump replace them with, one wonders. A solid gold dish of Skittles?
While for continuity
Clinton seems the natural candidate, Trump’s love of gold leaf is
not entirely at odds with previous White House residents. Fifth
president James Monroe was such a fan of the French Empire style
after his sojourn in Paris as ambassador that in 1817 when he moved
in he brought with him a load of gilded Bellangé furniture. Under
the Clintons, the Blue Room was restored in Monroe’s favoured
style. If The Donald misses his Angelo Donghia-designed New York pad
while slumming it in Washington he need only head there for a bit of
Trump time.
Although neither
candidate is measuring the drapes just yet, Hillary Clinton will be
hoping she can pull the rug out from under Donald Trump in more ways
than one.
Photographs:
Jonathan Becker/Contour by Getty Images; Colin Miller/Getty Images;
Cecil Stoughton, White House Photographs, John F. Kennedy
Presidential Library and Museum, Boston; Ed Clark/The LIFE Picture
Images Collection/Getty Images; REX/Shutterstock; Joyce
Naltchayan/AFP/Getty Images; The LIFE Picture Collection/Time Life
Pictures
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