Located on 17th Street NW, between Pennsylvania Avenue and State Place and West Executive Drive, the building was commissioned by President Ulysses S. Grant. It was built between 1871 and 1888, on the site of the original 1800 War/State/Navy Building[3] and the White House stables, in the French Second Empire style.
As its first name suggests, it was initially built to house three government cabinet departments. While the building's elaborate style received substantial criticism when it was first completed, it has since been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
The first executive offices were constructed between 1799 and 1820 on the former site of the Washington Jockey Club, flanking the White House.[4] In 1869, following the Civil War, Congress appointed a commission to select a site and submit plan and cost estimates for a new State Department Building, with possible arrangements to house the War and Navy departments.[4]
Construction of the State, War, and Navy Building (undated)The State, War, and Navy Building in 1917
The building, originally called the State, War, and Navy (SWAN) Building because it housed these three departments, was built between 1871 and 1888 in the FrenchSecond Empire style.[5]
It was designed by Alfred B. Mullett, Supervising Architect of the Department of Treasury, which had responsibility for federal buildings. Patterned after French Second Empire architecture that clashed sharply with the neoclassical style of the other Federal buildings in the city, it was generally regarded with scorn and disdain. Writer Mark Twain referred to this building as "the ugliest building in America."[6] President Harry S. Truman called it "the greatest monstrosity in America."[7] Historian Henry Adams called it Mullett's "architectural infant asylum."[8] Mullett later resigned. Beset by financial difficulties, litigation, and illness, in 1890 he committed suicide.
The exterior granite was cut and polished on the island of Vinalhaven, Maine, under a contract with Bodwell Granite Company.[9] Much of the interior was designed by Richard von Ezdorf, using fireproof cast-iron structural and decorative elements. These included massive skylights above each of the major stairwells, and doorknobs with cast patterns indicating which of the original three occupying departments (State, Navy, or War) occupied a particular space. The total cost to construct the building was $10,038,482 when construction ended in 1888, after 17 years.
The original tenants quickly outgrew the building and finally vacated it completely in the late 1930s. Becoming known as the Old Executive Office Building, it housed staff members of the Executive Office of the President. The building was considered inefficient and was nearly demolished in 1957. In 1969, the building was designated as a National Historic Landmark.[10]
In 1981, plans began to restore all the "secretary of" suites. The main office of the Secretary of the Navy was restored in 1987 and is now used as the ceremonial office of the vice president. Shortly after September 11, 2001, the 17th Street side of the building was vacated and has since been modernized. The building continues to house various agencies that compose the president's executive office, such as the Office of the Vice President, the Office of Management and Budget, and the National Security Council. Its most public function is that of the Vice President's Ceremonial Office, which is used chiefly for special meetings and press conferences.[11]
President Richard Nixon maintained a "hideaway" office in Room 180 of the EEOB, pictured here in 1969.
Presidents have occupied space in the EEOB as well. Herbert Hoover worked out of the Secretary of the Navy's office for a few months following a fire in the Oval Office on Christmas Eve 1929. President Dwight D. Eisenhower held the first televised presidential news conference in the building's Indian Treaty Room (Room 474) on January 19, 1955.[12] President Richard Nixon maintained a private "hideaway" office in room 180 of the EEOB during his presidency, from where he preferred to work, using the Oval Office only for ceremonial occasions.[13]
Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was the first in a succession of vice presidents who have had offices in the building.[11] The first wife of a vice president to have an office in the building was Marilyn Quayle, wife of Dan Quayle, vice president to George H.W. Bush.[citation needed]
The Old Executive Office Building was renamed the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building when President Bill Clinton approved legislation changing the name on November 9, 1999. President George W. Bush participated in a rededication ceremony on May 7, 2002.[14]
A small fire on December 19, 2007, damaged an office of the vice-president's staff and included the VP ceremonial office.[15] According to media reporting, the office of the vice president's Political Director, Amy Whitelaw, was heavily damaged in the fire.[16]
Occupants
The EEOB from the intersection of Pennsylvania Ave and 17th St. NW, pictured in 2021
Dwight David Eisenhower, nicknamed Ike, was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and achieved the five-star rank as General of the Army. Eisenhower planned and supervised two of the most consequential military campaigns of World War II: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–1943 and the invasion of Normandy in 1944.
The Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP) comprises the offices and agencies that support the work of the president at the center of the executive branch of the United States federal government. The office consists of several offices and agencies, such as the White House Office, the National Security Council, and the Office of Management and Budget.
The White House chief of staff is the head of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, a cabinet position in the federal government of the United States.
The Oval Office is the formal working space of the president of the United States. Part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it is in the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, D.C.
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department, was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, also bearing responsibility for naval affairs until the establishment of the Navy Department in 1798, and for most land-based air forces until the creation of the Department of the Air Force on September 18, 1947.
The West Wing of the White House houses the offices of the president of the United States. The West Wing contains the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, the Situation Room, and the Roosevelt Room.
The White House counsel is a senior staff appointee of the president of the United States whose role is to advise the president on all legal issues concerning the president and their administration. The White House counsel also oversees the Office of White House Counsel, a team of lawyers and support staff who provide legal guidance for the president and the White House Office. At least when White House counsel is advising the president on legal matters pertaining to the duties or prerogatives of the president, this office is also called Counsel to the President.
The White House Military Office (WHMO) is a department within the White House Office that provides military support for White House functions, including food service, presidential transportation, medical support, emergency medical services and hospitality services. The White House Military Office is headed by the White House Military Office Director.
Alfred Bult Mullett was a British-American architect who served from 1866 to 1874 as Supervising Architect, head of the agency of the United States Treasury Department that designed federal government buildings. His work followed trends in Victorian style, evolving from the Greek Revival to Second Empire to Richardsonian Romanesque.
The United States Secret Service uses code names for U.S. presidents, first ladies, and other prominent persons and locations. The use of such names was originally for security purposes and dates to a time when sensitive electronic communications were not routinely encrypted; today, the names simply serve for purposes of brevity, clarity, and tradition. The Secret Service does not choose these names, however. The White House Communications Agency maintains a list that candidates choose from, often choosing ones that resonate with them personally.
Jackson Place is a Washington, D.C. street located across from the White House and forming the western border of Lafayette Square between Pennsylvania Avenue and H Street, NW, beginning just south of Connecticut Avenue. Facing the street are mostly 19th century town homes which are now generally used for government offices of other official functions.
The National Space Council is a body within the Executive Office of the President of the United States created in 1989 during the George H. W. Bush administration, disbanded in 1993, and reestablished in June 2017 by the Donald Trump administration. It is a modified version of the earlier National Aeronautics and Space Council (1958–1973).
The Main Navy and Munitions Buildings were constructed in 1918 along Constitution Avenue on Washington, D.C.'s National Mall as the largest of a set of temporary war buildings on the National Mall. Both buildings were constructed by the Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks, with the United States Department of War occupying the Munitions Building. To make the buildings more resistant to fire, the buildings were constructed using concrete. With solid construction, the temporary buildings remained used long after the end of World War I.
The New Executive Office Building (NEOB) is a U.S. federal government office building in Washington, D.C., for the executive branch.
Clyde A. Wheeler was an American congressional relations expert, lobbyist, and member of the White House staff. After leaving the White House staff, he returned to Oklahoma, where he settled in Tulsa and became a lobbyist for Sun Oil Company. He retired from Sun in 1984 and returned to his ranch in his home town of Laverne, Oklahoma. He continued to do part-time work as a consultant for two Washington law firms until 1988. He died in Laverne in 2013.
The Office of the Vice President includes personnel who directly support or advise the vice president of the United States. The office is headed by the chief of staff to the vice president of the United States, currently Lorraine Voles. The office also provides staffing and support to the second gentleman of the United States. It is primarily housed in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, with offices for the vice president also in the West Wing, the U.S. Capitol, and in the vice president's official residence.
The Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny is situated in the Allegheny Center neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was commissioned in 1886, the first Carnegie library to be commissioned in the United States. Donated to the public by entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie, it was built from 1886 to 1890 on a design by John L. Smithmeyer and Paul J. Pelz.
The desk in the Vice President's Ceremonial Office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, colloquially known as the Theodore Roosevelt desk, is a large mahogany pedestal desk in the collection of the White House. It is the first of six desks that have been used by U.S. presidents in the Oval Office, and since 1961 has been the used as the desk of the U.S. Vice President.
The presidential transition of John F. Kennedy began when he won the 1960 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect of the United States, and ended when Kennedy was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 1961.
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