Entrance Hall - Truman Reconstruction

Truman Reconstruction

By 1948 the White House had become physically unstable, and the house was temporarily abandoned while a major reconstruction took place. The building's interior was dismantled, the furnishings and decorative items were stored, and a new steel frame was built within the exterior walls. Truman used this opportunity to reposition the entrance to the Grand Stair. Architect Lorenzo Simmons Winslow explored several options for the reorientation of the Grand Stair before convincing President Truman of the present configuration where it opens to the center of the east wall of the Entrance Hall. Except for the new stair opening, most of McKim's design was followed but now reinterpreted in light gray Joliet marble instead of warm hued Sienna stone and painted plaster. Cut into the stone casement around the opening to the Grand Staircase are the seals of the thirteen original American states. The Truman era floor is laid in a tesselated pattern of Westbury cream and Vermont marble. Truman thought it inappropriate to walk across the seal of the president that McKim had placed in the floor, and had the bronze seal moved to the ground floor above the entrance to the Diplomatic Reception Room. In place of the bronze seal in the floor, Truman had a polychrome painted plaster seal installed above the entrance to the Blue Room.