Quick Facts
The White House address is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.
Just as it did when it was first completed over 200 years ago, the White House still houses the president's family as well as offices for their top staff (although today, many more "White House staff" members work in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across the street).
The chief usher is in charge of keeping the house running smoothly. He has a staff of 90 workers to assist him: a head housekeeper, five chefs, and numerous maids, butlers, carpenters, plumbers, gardeners, and engineers.
The Residence is 170 feet wide by 85 feet deep and 58 feet high (52 m by 26 m and 18 m high).
The White House hosts about 5,000 visitors a day, or 1,825,000 visitors a year.
White House Residence Ground Floor
The ground floor of the White House Residence connects to the first floor of the West Wing and the first floor of the East Wing because the Residence sits on on a small hill. This floor has 10 rooms, 1 main corridor, 6 lavatories.
For its first century, this floor was thought of as the "basement." In the nineteenth century, many servants, particularly those who had come with the family, were housed here.
When, amid the growing sectional tensions over abolition, Zachary Taylor brought slaves to serve his family in the White House, they were hidden from public view, living instead in the cramped attic space.
The Floor of State
The first floor of the White House Residence is often called the "State Floor," because this is where formal receptions of state are held. This floor is at the same level as the second floor of the West Wing and the East Wing because the Residence sits on higher ground. This floor has 8 rooms, 1 main corridor, 1 entrance hall.
The First Floor Mezzanine
Over the Butler's Pantry, Usher's Office, and first floor elevator lobby is a mezzanine (a partial floor level) that includes some small closets and another pantry for pastry cooking as well as the clock room.
White House Residence Second Floor
The Family Residence
The second floor of the White House Residence is the first family residence, where their bedrooms and private sitting rooms are located, as well as some guest bedrooms such as the Lincoln Bedroom. This floor has 16 rooms, 1 main corridor, 6 bathrooms, and 1 lavatory. The first family has overnight guests at the Residence, but visiting chiefs of state usually stay across the street at Blair House, which is the official guest facility for international leaders and is managed and operated by the Department of State.
White House Residence Third Floor
The third floor of the White House Residence is where the first family relaxes. It includes a billiards room, a workout room and music room the Clintons put in, and a sun room.
The old attic had long been used for storage along with about eight small sloped-ceiling bedrooms for servants (initially, Zachary Taylor's slaves), but it was accessible only by ladder. The 1902 renovation installed a staircase and expanded the space for some ironing rooms, linen closets, clothing storage, and guest rooms. The Tafts finished more of the space and the Wilson still more. One room was dubbed the "Bachelor's Suite" for young men who courted the Wilson daughters, and in another well-lit area painter Ellen Wilson worked on her canvases.
In 1927 the attic was enlarged and finished as a third floor while the White House roof was rebuilt. Ike Hoover, chief usher at the time, wrote:
Going up either by the stairway or the elevator, we find ourselves in a long central corridor running east and west with rooms on both sides and a suite at either end, the one on the east being used by the colored female help, such as the cooks and housemaids. On the south side of the corridor are six rooms. Four of them were furnished and intended to be guest-rooms, but were used as offices by [First Lady] Mrs. Hoover's three secretaries. The other rooms are a sewing-room and a valet's bedroom. On the north side of the corridor are all kinds of rooms—two are used by the housekeeper, two are linen-rooms, three general storerooms, one cedar-room for winter storing, and finally a very large space over the north portico is used to store the chairs used at musicales and dinner parties.
Lou Hoover's secretaries worked here. FDR's personal secretary Missy LeHand lived here, and later so did little Diana Hopkins, daughter of FDR's live-in adviser Harry Hopkins. After enduring the intolerable food supervised by a housekeeper who ignored his wishes, FDR had a small kitchen created on the third floor, and there his meals were made. Dwight Eisenhower cooked his own soups and stews here.
In 1952, the sloped corners were squared off to create corner rooms during the Truman reconstruction. The penthouse suite on the west side was used by the remaining in-house servants. This floor now has 20 rooms, 1 main corridor, 9 bathrooms.
Jackie Kennedy first decorated the third floor bedrooms with antiques, the most notable being the "Empire Guest Room," which featured a bed used by John Adams. The Carter family sentimentally had one of the rooms lined with wood panels from an old family barn in Georgia. Julie Nixon and her husband, David Eisenhower, the visiting Reagan and Bush children and grandchildren, and relatives of the Clintons all stayed here, and while in residence the Ford and Carter sons lived in rooms on this floor.
Hillary Clinton created her own Eleanor Roosevelt room where she kept memorabilia of her predecessor that had been sent to her as gifts and used the west-side suite as office space. Under the Reagans, and again under the Clintons, the bedroom suites were beautifully decorated with items from the White House collection.
Executive Residence
The original residence is in the center. Two colonnades—one on the east and one on the west—designed by Jefferson, now serve to connect the East and West Wings, added later. The Executive Residence houses the president's dwelling, as well as rooms for ceremonies and official entertaining. The State Floor of the residence building includes the East Room, Green Room, Blue Room, Red Room, State Dining Room, Family Dining Room, Cross Hall, Entrance Hall, and Grand Staircase.The Ground Floor is made up of the Diplomatic Reception Room, Map Room, China Room, Vermeil Room, Library, the main kitchen, and other offices.The second floor family residence includes the Yellow Oval Room, East and West Sitting Halls, the White House Master Bedroom, President's Dining Room, the Treaty Room, Lincoln Bedroom and Queens' Bedroom, as well as two additional bedrooms, a smaller kitchen, and a private dressing room. The third floor consists of the White House Solarium, Game Room, Linen Room, a Diet Kitchen, and another sitting room (previously used as President George W. Bush's workout room).
State Floor:Entrance Hall
Overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue, this hall serves as a grand foyer for the official reception rooms on the State Floor. During events, the United States Marine Band often performs in this location. Under President Thomas Jefferson, artifacts acquired by explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (1803-6) and Zebulon Pike (1805-7) were displayed in the Entrance Hall.
The grand staircase leads from the State Floor to the Second Floor and is used primarily for ceremonial occasions. On the lowest landing, President Ronald Reagan took his second oath of office on January 20, 1985. Since inauguration day fell on a Sunday, a private ceremony was held in the White House that day with the official ceremony at the U.S. Capitol on the Monday following. Until 1902 two large staircases led from the State Floor to the Second Floor. A staircase at the west end of the Cross Hall that led to the Family Quarters was removed in 1902 to enlarge the State Dining Room. The winding staircase to the east of the Entrance Hall led to the rooms on the east end of the Second Floor that were used as the presidential offices before the creation of the West Wing. When the 1902 Grand Staircase was rebuilt during the Truman renovation, it was redirected to open into the Entrance Hall for more dramatic formal descents from the Second Floor.
