The Family Dining Room is located on the State Floor of the White House, the official residence of the President of the United States. The room is used for smaller, more private meals than those served in the State Dining Room. Today the president uses the Family Dining Room less for family and more for working lunches and small dinners. Family dinners are more often served on the Second Floor in the President's Dining Room.
Soon after construction of the White House a need was seen for a separate private dining room. Thomas Jefferson used the present Green Room as his private dining room. New floor plans made for reconstruction of the White House following its burning by the British in 1814 indicate a State Dining Room in the southwest corner, and a private dining room in the northwest of the State Floor. In the latter half of the 19th century a pantry was added in the northwest corner reducing the size of the private dining room, and use of the term "Family Dining Room" began to replace the name "Private Dining Room."
Read more about Family Dining Room: McKim's Neoclassical Redesign, The Truman Reconstruction, Kennedy Restoration and Later Administrations, Gallery, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words dining room, family, dining and/or room:
“Behind her was confusion in the room,
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In other chairs, and something, come to look,
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And dining room thrown pell-mell in the kitchen.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
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“Roast Beef, Medium, is not only a food. It is a philosophy. Seated at Life’s Dining Table, with the menu of Morals before you, your eye wanders a bit over the entrées, the hors d’oeuvres, and the things à la though you know that Roast Beef, Medium, is safe and sane, and sure.”
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“It so happened that, a few weeks later, “Old Ernie” [Ernest Hemingway] himself was using my room in New York as a hide-out from literary columnists and reporters during one of his rare stopover visits between Africa and Key West. On such all-too-rare occasions he lends an air of virility to my dainty apartment which I miss sorely after he has gone and all the furniture has been repaired.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)