Benjamin H. Latrobe's 1803 drawing of the State Floor
indicates that the Red Room served as "the President's
Antichamber" for the Cabinet Room and President's Library
next door. During the Madison administration, the room
became Dolley Madison's famous salon. A sunflower yellow,
not red, dominated the room’s décor. Visitors
were received at her famous Wednesday night receptions
in the "blazing splendor" of this room. The Red Room traditionally
has served as a parlor or sitting room; recent Presidents
have had small dinner parties here.
The Madison’s
style of entertaining came to an abrupt end on August
24, 1814 when the British invaded Washington and burned
the mansion. President James Monroe moved into the restored
house in 1817. He strived to bring a cosmopolitan taste
to the state floor, decorating the rooms in the prevailing
Empire style. During John Tyler's administration, this
room became the "Washington Parlor," when the large
Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington, now in
the East Room, was displayed here at that time. Yellow
dominated the color scheme until 1845, when President
and Mrs. Polk furnished the room with a dark crimson
French Antique style suite and a ruby carpet. Soon the
"Washington Parlor" became the "Red Room."
On March
3, 1877, the Red Room was the scene for the historic
swearing-in of President elect Rutherford B. Hayes.
Political tensions ran high after his bitterly contested
election over Samuel J. Tilden, so Hayes secretly took
the oath of office at the White House. Inauguration
Day fell on a Sunday that year, and this swearing-in
avoided a 24- hour delay in the transfer of power and
any perceived danger of a coup. President Ulysses Grant
slipped away from a dinner party in the next room to
attend the ceremony. Hayes took the oath of office again
in public on March 5 on the east front of the Capitol
without incident.
In 1882,
President Chester Arthur commissioned Louis Tiffany
to redecorate the Red Room. The walls were painted Pompeiian
red with a richly decorated tawny red frieze of abstract
stars. Tiffany embellished the room with a cornice and
ceiling medallion stenciled in gold leaf and the ceiling’s
star pattern was finished in gold and copper tones.
The designer also added a new cherry mantel, stained
a deep amaranthine red inlaid with brown, amber, and
brown-amber red glass tiles that changed in tone with
the light.
Throughout
the 19th century, the room was often used
as a music chamber and contained instruments, such as
a pianoforte and guitar ordered by Dolley Madison. Sunday
evenings were popular for family gatherings in the Red
Room, and President and Mrs. Lincoln frequently used
the space for informal entertaining.
With Theodore Roosevelt’s major state room renovations
of 1902, architect Charles McKim retained the room's
red velour walls and strongly contrasted them with the
new snowy white neoclassical woodwork. He also moved
a striking white marble mantle from the State Dining
Room, purchased during the Monroe administration, into
the Red Room. Edith Roosevelt displayed her doll collection
in the Red Room and, at her suggestion, the portraits
of first ladies that traditionally hung in this area
were moved to the Ground Floor Corridor.
President
Harry Truman's interior renovations, directed by project
architect Lorenzo Winslow between 1948-1952, retained
the neoclassical design of McKim Mead and White. He
reinstalled Monroe's white marble mantle in the rebuilt
Red Room and added a replica of Hoban’s cornice.
The present
appearance of the Red Room was inspired by the 1971
redecoration that preserved the American Empire style
selected in 1962 during the Kennedy administration.
The elegance of the Red Room furniture derives from
a combination of richly carved and finished woods with
decorative hardware made of gilded bronze in characteristic
designs such as dolphins, acanthus leaves, lion's heads,
and sphinxes. All the fabrics now in the Red Room were
woven in the United States from French Empire designs.
The walls are covered by a red twill satin fabric with
a gold scroll design in the border. The furniture, like
the American Empire sofa, is upholstered in a silk of
the same shade of red. The carpet--of beige, red and
gold--is a reproduction of an early 19th-century French
Savonnerie carpet in the White House collection. The
36-light French Empire chandelier was fashioned from
carved and gilded wood about 1805.
Notable
potraits displayed in the Red Room include an 1842 portrait
of Angelica Singleton Van Buren by Henry Inman,
and Gilbert Stuart's 1804 portrait of Dolley Madison.
Photos are from the White House Collection or are
public domain. Please email our webmaster for more information:
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