White House Down

    The Ballroom as Planned  

Demolition of the East Wing that Was supposed to stay 

Ballroom dwarfing the White House

White House Down

“It won’t interfere with the current building. It won’t be… It’ll be near it but not touching it — and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of. It’s my favorite. It’s my favorite place. I love it.”

Donald Trump in July as he told the world he was contemplating building a ballroom next to the East Wing of the White House.

When I got a tour of Mar-a-Lago before Trump’s presidency, oddly during a day that the septic tank was being purged (a most odoriferous moment), I was stunned by the garish similarity to the gold-on-everything motif of Middle East potentates. I suspect Donald Trump, fond of his gold fixtures in his Trump Tower residence, was innately drawn to what I call “ostentatious show-off” interior design… Rococo on steroids. Originally of Mar-a-Lago was the mega-wealthy Post cereal (later General Mills) heir, Marjorie Merriweather Post. She also married even more money later. After Ms Post died in 1973, the estate passed to the US government, but it was such a pain to maintain, an achromatism from the Gilded Age, that the government deeded back. Trump bought the estate for $7 million, bought some adjacent land for $3 million, and the over-the-top mansion was his.

What that purchase and his remodel of his flat in Trump Tower reflected, more than anything, was his flash and splash ego. Ballrooms were a vestige of grand royal palaces where courtiers and wannabes fawned over presence to the king. King George III would have appreciated the design for that garish building, but I suspect most Americans could not fathom why the United States needed its version of Versailles, a expensive, ostentatious building that needs extensive and expensive constant cleaning and maintenance. Indeed, if MAGA resented elitism, this ballroom was a massive smack in their face. For those who believed in a “No Kings” presidency, it was a clear sign that Trump did not see this effort that way. After all, he wanted a place where his sycophants could worship him.

“‘For more than 150 years, every President has dreamt about having a Ballroom at the White House,’ wrote no one ever until Donald J. Trump posted the proclamation on his Truth Social platform Monday [10/20]… The president’s plans to build the kind of venue that most Americans associate with Disney princesses, Von Trapp family soirees and let-them-eat-cake dynasties became a reality this week as construction crews began tearing down the White House East Wing to build Trump's 90,000-square-foot, $300-million ballroom (up $100 million from estimates it cited earlier in the week). When completed, the venue will dwarf the main White House, boasting nearly twice the square footage of the executive residence.

“The first photos and footage of heavy machinery knocking down parts of the East Wing on Monday [10/20] triggered strong reactions from historians, preservationists, politicians and regular folk — all of whom took umbrage with the administration's unilateral decision to alter the 224-year-old official residence of presidents dating back to John Adams.” Lorrainne Ali, for the October 22nd Los Angeles Times. Not since the rebuild following the War of 1812 has any president unilaterally reconstructed the White House. All the additions that followed were authorized by Congress with support from the relevant historical societies. As the building aged, structural repairs were also necessary.

But can the president do this unilaterally without any reviews? Writing for the October 22nd FastCompany.com, Nate Berg addresses that issue:“Despite the White House’s historic and symbolic significance, there was little to protect it from the demolition work now underway. The White House, along with the Supreme Court building, the Capitol building, and several other properties, is exempted from historic preservation rules that would otherwise stand in the way of such a building being torn down.

“Under section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, a strict review process is required for federal projects that may affect historic buildings, leading to both public scrutiny and legal obligations surrounding any proposed changes to existing historic resources. When it comes to the White House, various other entities have some level of oversight, including the National Park Service, the Commission of Fine Arts, and the National Capitol Planning Commission, but none can fully override a project like the demolition and ballroom addition due to the building’s Section 106 exemption.

“During his time on the National Capital Planning Commission, Green says he participated in the Section 106 review process and found it beneficial to the outcome of the projects in question. ‘Projects generally improve as a part of that process,’ he says. ‘You’re having lots of eyes on them, having lots of different people with different interests look at these things and comment on them. They get better.’

“The White House ballroom project and its related East Wing demolition had very little, if any, public involvement. Though Trump initially said that several concepts were being considered for the project, the administration did not release any designs or name any architects ahead of July 31, when Trump announced that the White House had chosen Washington, D.C.-based McCrery Architects as the lead architect of the project. Trump has said the project, with an estimated cost of $200 million, would be funded by donors, himself included, ‘with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!’” Like that building wouldn’t need staffing and extensive, continuing maintenance.

The list of donors is an embarrassing presentation of billionaires and companies who are either government vendors or who routinely need government approval for their business operations or expansion. Names like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Comcast, T-Mobile, Lockheed Martin, Coinbase, etc. With Trump able to grant exceptions to his tariffs, for example, making sure Trump is well cared for is exactly how a kleptocracy works. Democracies do not need ballrooms; monarchies almost always have them.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I suspect King Trump just might expect to hang around for at least another term to enjoy his royal palace… and he just might have the gerrymandered redistricting he needs to be able to do that.