John Adams moved into the White House on November 1, 1800, and every American president since has lived and worked here. The building is older than it looks — and younger, in a sense, than you might expect.
The original White House was designed by Irish architect James Hoban and built largely by enslaved laborers and free Black workers between 1792 and 1800. The wages paid for enslaved workers' labor went to their enslavers, not to them. A 2016 White House Historical Association report documented their contribution for the first time.
On August 24, 1814, British forces marched into Washington and set the building on fire. First Lady Dolley Madison had evacuated hours earlier, famously taking the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington with her. The exterior sandstone walls survived. When reconstruction began, they were painted white to cover the smoke damage.
The mansion has 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, a bowling alley, a movie theater, a tennis court, a swimming pool, and a putting green. But what you cannot see from here: its history of private crises played out behind these walls. The Cuban Missile Crisis, Nixon's resignation, the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan — America's hardest choices were made inside that house.
The President's Oval Office is in the West Wing, on your left. Theodore Roosevelt added the West Wing in 1902 so that presidential business could be separated from the family residence. Before that, presidents worked in the residence itself.