From its opening in 1800 , through one nasty bit of fire-raising and several renovations , the White House has been the home of every president but one : George Washington . The first U.S. president may have commissioned the place and OK’d the architect , but John Adams , the second president , was the first to live there .
" In my brain , there are kind of two [ things ] that kind of keep United States President in the White House . No . 1 is the symbol . The White House is so linked as a national symbolisation to the presidency , " tell Evan Phifer , a historiographer with the White House Historical Association we mouth to in 2016 . " And the second is , in the White House , everything is there . They have security , they have the work blank to accommodate a act president . "
Added Joel Treese , another WHHA historiographer , in 2016 : " I do n’t know of any chair who believe not living there . It sort of kick the bucket with the territorial dominion . "
But it ’s not as if the president of the United Stateshasto dwell in the White House . No law command it . Although with everything there , and a commute like that — the West Wing is a few steps from the master residence — the live - work - play frame-up has thus far proven impossible to sour down .
rent ’s do a speedy review of that frame-up : The grand , old edifice has some 55,000 hearty foot ( 5,110 square meter ) of endure and working space , 132 suite , at least three kitchens , 35 lav and a rather famous oval - shaped part where the leader of the free human race punches his meter card . The White House sits on an 18 - Akko ( 7.3 - hectare ) plot with a puddle , a lawn tennis court and a backyard big enough to land a helicopter .
U.S. presidents may have yet to turn down live in the White House , but governors all over the country havebacked off hold out in governor ’s star sign , for a mixture of rationality ( often because it ’s not really home ) . The regulator of New York ( Andrew Cuomo ) is just one of many main executive not live on in their land ’s expectant house . When California ’s former Governor Jerry Brown move into that commonwealth ’s Governor ’s Mansion in 2017 , it had been without a full - time house physician for more than half a century before . Massachusetts , Idaho , Arizona and Rhode Island are among the state that do n’t even have an executive abidance .
But the White House has endure as a base cornerstone for sit around presidents for more than two centuries . The President ’s Palace ( a one - sentence name ) is not always now engage by whomever takes office . But whoever takes office , ever since Adams first scotch the threshold in 1800 , lives there finally .
" Often presidents are not there in the first few week of their term if they come through a president who died in post , " aver Treese . " Like [ Theodore ] Roosevelt did n’t move in right away [ after William McKinley ’s blackwash ] . Truman did n’t move in decent away [ after Franklin Delano Roosevelt ’s death ] . Nor did the Johnsons [ after John F. Kennedy ’s assassination ] . Nor did Andrew Johnson [ after Abraham Lincoln ’s assassination ] . They give the departing first family a little grace period . "
The most hard living arrangements for a White House resident , hand down , were James Madison ’s . On Aug. 24 , 1814 , during what is now know as the War of 1812 , British forces rolled into Washington , deign upon the White House ( the President ’s House then),scarfed down a dinner that had been prepared for the President of the United States , his cabinet and some military officers … then looted and burned the post .
That irk common mullein - and - run — talk about aBrexit — squeeze Madison and his wife Dolley into a grand old residence down the street , the Octagon House , and prompt some word on whether to rebuild the White House at all . Indeed , politicians mulled moving the seat of administration out of D.C. alone .
Madison insisted on reconstruct on the same spot — using the original designer , James Hoban , and incorporating the sunbaked mansion ’s sandstone wall that remained stand up — and reconstruction presently began . Madison ’s heir , James Monroe , had to cool his heel at his home plate in Virginia while the finishing touch were being applied , but he moved in about six months after his inauguration in 1817 .
compare to the Madisons ' experience , the actual live part of reside in the White House has been a relative picnic for most other President of the United States . Sure , some have had to live through the incessant hammer and sawing relate with construction and/or renovations . Others may or may not have had to plow with alligators on the premises ( that ’s believably just legend ) . The White House stables caught fervency during Lincoln ’s presidentship , andthe West Wing endured a fire in 1929 .
It ’s not always a financial win living in the White House , either , as many first family line have found out . In her record book " The Obamas , " author Jodi Kantor pointed out the many expense that the White House occupants have to shell out . Per NPR :
Still , for all the hassles involved — tourists constantly tromping about , snap pictures — it is an undeniably cool home to call domicile . Only 44 people ever have had the luck to be the head of that House . ( It was n’t built until after Washington , remember , and Grover Cleveland live there on two different occasion . ) It ’s an enduring symbolization of power and freedom .
And nobody who lives there ever has had to worry about giving out directions .
