Ashley
Ahn
Aug. 3,
2025, 5:59 a.m. ETAug. 3, 2025
Ashley
Ahn
Trump forges ahead with White House renovation
as experts flag concerns.
Experts on historic preservation are raising
concerns over the feasibility of President Trump’s plans to complete
large-scale renovations to the White House by the end of his term, and whether
the project can be done while respecting the historic nature of the building.
Mr. Trump unveiled plans on Thursday to
construct a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot state ballroom off the East Wing
to be completed “long before” the end of his term in 2029. The project would be
one of the largest renovations to the iconic building in decades.
Mr. Trump has been on a winning streak this
summer, emerging victorious in a series of Supreme Court rulings, signing a
massive bill to carry out his domestic policy agenda and winning concessions
from some of America’s top trading partners. Now, by checking off a long-sought
item on his list of pet projects, Mr. Trump is showing that he apparently feels
emboldened to continue flexing his presidential power.
The White House, the Supreme Court building,
the Capitol and all their “related buildings and grounds” are exempt from the
National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, which requires federal agencies to
assess and mitigate adverse effects to historic properties and seek
consultation through a formal review process.
Instead, the White House has its own committee
that provides advice on the “preservation and the interpretation of the museum
character” of the building. The Committee for the Preservation of the White
House — chaired by the director of the National Park Service — is made up of
several federal officials and a number of members appointed by the president.
Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff,
said on Thursday in a news release that the administration was “fully committed
to working with the appropriate organizations to preserving the special history
of the White House.”
Still, the committee’s recommendations are not
binding, giving the president significant leeway to do as he wishes. “In most
cases, you’re not going to have a lot of binding obligations to historic
buildings,” said Michael Spencer, a professor of historic preservation at the
University of Mary Washington.
The sheer scale of the project — a giant
ballroom attached to the East Wing — worries preservationists. “It could do
some harm to the property over all,” said Richard Longstreth, a professor of
American studies at George Washington University. “There aren’t any checks and
balances here, unfortunately.”
Mr. Spencer said his expectations on
preservation were “pretty low.”
“We’re oftentimes viewed as getting in the way
of progress, and I would say in this particular instance, you’ve got a lot of
strong personalities and they’re under no obligation to really follow best
practices as preservation puts forth,” he said.
Jonathan Jarvis, former director of the
National Park Service, which is responsible for the upkeep of the White House
and its grounds, said any additions made to the White House must follow the
architectural design of the building. “You couldn’t put something on the side
of the building that doesn’t match it historically in terms of its
architecture, coloration and style,” he said.
He cast doubt on the timeline the Trump
administration proposed, calling its plans to finish a project of this scale by
the end of Mr. Trump’s term “optimistic.”
“You don’t see one of those projects go that
fast,” he said. “It’ll be a rush to get it done.”
Mr. Jarvis, who was the director of the
National Park Service from 2009 to 2017, said construction at the White House
is a “complicated process” because it is “not just normal construction.”
“It’s the White House — it has to survive a
terrorist attack,” he said. He added that every step of the process would need
to be evaluated to ensure that nothing “is being compromised architecturally or
from a security standpoint.”
Stewart D. McLaurin, president of the White
House Historical Association, said the White House has gone through numerous
changes to its interior and exterior since the cornerstone was laid in 1792,
and many of them faced resistance. He said many of those changes made the White
House what it is today.
“The South Portico, the North Portico, the
East Wing, the West Wing and the Truman Balcony all raised concerns at the time
— but today, we can’t imagine the White House without these iconic elements,”
he said.
It remains unclear whether the Committee for
the Preservation of the White House, which works in tandem with the White House
Historical Association, has provided recommendations or raised concerns about
Mr. Trump’s ballroom. A spokeswoman for the historical association, Jessica
Fredericks, did not respond to questions about the committee’s position on the
project.
In addition to the director of the National
Park Service, the committee is composed of representatives from the White
House, the Smithsonian Institution, the Commission of Fine Arts, the National
Gallery of Art and a handful of presidential appointees.
Mr. Trump has not nominated a park service
director, a position that requires Senate confirmation, or announced the
appointments of individuals to serve on the committee. The terms of 13
individuals that former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. appointed to the
committee in 2023 expired when Mr. Trump began his second term, according to a
government database. Jessica Bowron, the comptroller of the National Park
Service, is currently serving as its acting director.
The president tapped McCrery Architects as the
lead architect of the project. James McCrery, the company’s founding principal
architect, was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2019 to serve a four-year term on the
Commission of Fine Arts. He called the ballroom a necessary addition to the
White House, where presidents have “faced challenges hosting major events.”
Mr. McCrery said he would preserve “the
elegance of its classical design and historical importance” of the White House.
Questions about who is funding the project are
also still largely unanswered. White House officials said the president and
“other patriot donors” would pay for the renovations but declined to give
details.
When asked on Friday if he would block foreign
donations, Mr. Trump said he had not thought about it: “I’m not looking for
that. You have very strong restrictions. And we go by the restrictions.”
Still, Kathleen Clark, a law professor at
Washington University in St. Louis who specializes in government ethics, called
the lack of transparency “completely outrageous.” She questioned whether the
donors were seeking “ways to get in good with Trump.”
“He feels emboldened,” she said. “He feels
like he can do anything.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.
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