Inside
Trump’s Push to Make the White House Ballroom as Big as Possible
President
Trump’s ever-growing vision has caused tension with contractors. His architect
has taken a step back as the president personally manages the project.
Luke
Broadwater
By Luke
Broadwater
Luke
Broadwater is a White House correspondent. He reported from Washington.
Published
Nov. 29, 2025
Updated
Nov. 30, 2025
As
President Trump took a stroll on the White House roof in August, generating
headlines and questions about what he was up to, the man walking beside him was
little noticed.
Wearing
his signature bow tie, James McCrery, a classical architect who runs a small
Washington firm known for its work building Catholic churches, was discussing
how to execute Mr. Trump’s vision for a ballroom on the White House grounds.
Mr.
McCrery’s work has been embraced by conservatives who believe federal buildings
should be designed with an eye toward the grandeur of ancient Greek and Roman
structures. He often talks of how his design work is carried out in service of
God and the church, according to people who have worked with him.
It might
have seemed an odd pairing: a man who designs cathedrals working for a man who
once built casinos, and is now president of the United States.
But
McCrery Architects got to work on the initial drawings for the project,
sketching out a design with high ceilings and arched windows reminiscent of
Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors. It would have the latest security features,
including bulletproof glass. Gold furniture, known to please the president, was
added to the renderings.
It was
flashy enough to impress a man of Mr. Trump’s tastes, while largely matching
the style of the historic White House without overshadowing it.
That’s
when things got tricky.
In
offering up his initial design, Mr. McCrery could not have known that Mr.
Trump’s vision for the project was growing. What started as a 500-seat ballroom
connected to the East Wing grew to 650 seats. Next, he wanted a 999-seat
ballroom, then room for 1,350. Even as Mr. Trump assured the public in July
that the ballroom would not touch the existing structure, he already had
approved plans to demolish the East Wing to make way for something that could
hold several thousand people, according to three people familiar with the
timeline.
The
latest plan, which officials said was still preliminary, calls for a ballroom
much larger than the West Wing and the Executive Mansion. Mr. Trump has said
publicly that he would like a ballroom big enough to hold a crowd for a
presidential inauguration.
The size
of the project was not the only issue raising alarms. Mr. Trump also told
people working on the ballroom that they did not need to follow permitting,
zoning or code requirements because the structure is on White House grounds,
according to three people familiar with his comments. (The firms involved have
insisted on following industry standards.)
In recent
weeks, Mr. McCrery has pulled back from day-to-day involvement in the project,
two people familiar with the matter told The New York Times. They emphasized
that Mr. McCrery was still involved as a consultant on the design and proud to
be working for Mr. Trump.
A White
House official acknowledged that there had been disagreements between Mr. Trump
and Mr. McCrery, a dynamic first reported by the Washington Post.
Through a
representative, Mr. McCrery declined requests for an interview.
This
account of Mr. Trump’s personal drive to undertake one of the most significant
renovations in the history of the White House is based on interviews with five
people with knowledge of the project, most of whom asked for anonymity to
discuss private conversations, along with the president’s own statements and
planning documents released by the White House.
A
Builder’s Dream
For Mr.
Trump, who was a builder for years in New York City and who often brags about
his talents in real estate and construction, the White House renovation is a
dream project.
Mr. Trump
has marveled that he does not need to follow the kind of permitting
requirements that he faced back in New York. He doesn’t need approvals from
anyone, he has told those around him, and can begin any project at the White
House as quickly as he likes.
“‘You’re
the president of the United States, you can do anything you want,’” Mr. Trump
has said he’s been told.
Mr. Trump
has wanted to build a ballroom at the White House for years. During the Obama
administration, he pitched the idea of constructing a $100 million version of
his Mar-a-Lago ballroom. But Obama associates never followed up on his offer, a
slight that has stayed with Mr. Trump.
The
ballroom Mr. Trump is planning now is more than four times as large as the
20,000-square-foot one at Mar-a-Lago.
Aware of
potential resistance to the project, Mr. Trump has pushed to remove any
obstacle that could slow down his vision.
He has
installed his former personal lawyer as the chairman of the National Capital
Planning Commission, which is supposed to review plans for the project. That
lawyer, Will Scharf, has said there was no need to review Mr. Trump’s plans
before he ordered the demolition of the East Wing.
Mr. Trump
has also fired the entire board of the Commission of Fine Arts, an independent
federal agency that was established by Congress to advise the president on
urban planning and historical preservation.
Mr.
Trump’s unilateral approach has raised concerns from the Society of
Architectural Historians, which urged that “such a significant change to a
historic building of this import should follow a rigorous and deliberate design
and review process.”
Mr. Trump
is aware of the criticism that his ballroom plans are too large. He told a
group of donors to the project last month that he didn’t want the new ballroom
to “dwarf anything.” But at the same event, in discussing related plans to
construct a Triumphal Arch, Mr. Trump showed small, medium and large options.
“I happen
to think the large looks by far the best,” he said.
Deep in
the Details
Mr. Trump
selected Mr. McCrery after the architect made his presentation personally in
the Oval Office, emphasizing a design that would be in keeping with the
existing White House. (The building’s original designer, James Hoban, was also
a church architect.)
The
president has also said that the firm excavating the site initially told him
the work would cost $3.2 million, but that he pressured the company to accept
just $2 million.
The short
timetable for the project, which the president has said he wants to be
completed before 2029, has led to some embarrassing mistakes.
The
various plans released so far, including a rushed model made by a contractor,
have included windows that collide into each other and a staircase to nowhere.
Richard
W. Longstreth, an architectural historian and a professor at George Washington
University, noted that the public had yet to see a final design of the
building. He said the ballroom project's success would depend a lot on its
execution.
“I have
nothing against the contemporary use of classical architecture, if it’s done
well,” he said. “And there are people who can do it very well, and others who
cannot.”
The
president initially considered ways to preserve the East Wing, the traditional
offices of the first lady and the entrance to the White House for millions of
Americans on official tours.
McCrery
Architects provided options to build the ballroom as an addition to the East
Wing or construct the new facility over it. But Mr. Trump rejected those plans.
Under the
latest designs, the offices of the first lady would be on the ground floor of
the proposed ballroom, with a main visitor entrance from the East Portico.
“We
started with a much smaller building, and then I realized, we have the land,
let’s do it right,” Mr. Trump said recently to donors, during an event to raise
money for the ballroom project. “And so we built a larger building that can
really hold just about any function that we want.”
Many have
embraced the idea of Mr. Trump’s new ballroom as a benefit to the complex,
pointing out problems with hosting large events in tents on White House
grounds.
Joseph
Malchow, who is on the board of the National Civic Art Society with Mr.
McCrery, said Mr. Trump was leading an effort to restore “classical American
architecture.”
Mr. Trump
has said taxpayers are not on the hook for the ballroom, whose costs have risen
by 50 percent, from $200 million to $300 million. The president has said he
already raised $350 million from donors, including from major tech and crypto
companies, and that businesses pledged to donate all of the steel and air
conditioning.
But that
payment method means going around Congress to fund the project, cutting
legislators out of having any say over its direction.
“The
White House is one of the great buildings in this country. It’s the so-called
people’s palace,” said Richard Guy Wilson, professor emeritus of architectural
history at the University of Virginia. “This new ballroom that’s going up, it’s
gigantic, and unfortunately, it’s going to sort of dominate.”
‘An
Important Designer’
The
ballroom project is Mr. Trump’s latest push to remake the White House in his
own image.
He has
added gold moldings and gold decorations throughout the Oval Office, and gold
ornaments to the Cabinet Room.
He
removed a photo of Hillary Clinton, the former first lady and secretary of
state, and replaced it with an image of his own face colored with the American
flag. He added marble floors and a chandelier to the Palm Room.
He paved
over the Rose Garden grass to add a patio. Along the West Wing colonnade, he
added gold-framed photos of every American president except his predecessor,
Joseph R. Biden Jr., whom he depicted as an autopen.
Mr.
Longstreth noted that many of Mr. Trump’s changes could be undone by future
presidents. “A lot of that is reversible,” he said. “And presidents have often
come in and changed the decoration to a considerable degree.”
Still,
Mr. Trump is showing no signs of stopping. He recently gutted the bathroom in
the Lincoln Bedroom, posting two dozen photos on social media of the
renovation. And he has informally discussed undertaking more projects at the
White House, including more work on the West Wing.
A White
House official said that a large-scale renovation of the West Wing was not
currently under consideration, but that Mr. Trump would be making more changes.
Speaking
of the design plans for the new ballroom, Mr. Trump has said that he likes to
see different proposals, but that he ultimately has the final say.
“I
consider myself an important designer,” Mr. Trump has said.
When we
learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error,
please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Luke
Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.
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