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| Building | West Wing,White House |
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| Location | Washington, D.C. |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 38°53′51″N77°02′15″W / 38.8974°N 77.0376°W /38.8974; -77.0376 |
| Purpose | Meeting room |
| Named for | Theodore Roosevelt andFranklin D. Roosevelt |
| Architect | Charles Follen McKim |
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TheRoosevelt Room is ameeting room in theWest Wing of theWhite House, the residence of thepresident of the United States, inWashington, D.C. Located in the center of the wing, across the hall from theOval Office, it is named after two related U.S. presidents,Theodore Roosevelt andFranklin D. Roosevelt, who were both major contributors to the West Wing. The room is commonly used for staffmeetings and to announce theappointment ornomination of newstaff members.[1]
In 1902, Congress passed anappropriations bill that, in addition to repairs and refurnishing, called for the construction of a temporary office building west of theWhite House. This led to the removal of government offices from theEast Wing and allocated extra space for additional rooms.[2]: 185 Theodore Roosevelt hiredBeaux-Arts architectCharles Follen McKim of the New York architectural firmMcKim, Mead & White to both rearrange, redecorate, and refurnish the interior of the White House and also to build a discreet office structure on the west.[2]: 185-186 [3]: 17–18 [4]: 39 The original structure, some of which is still extant in the present West Wing,[citation needed] was originally intended to be temporary.[3]: 18
Roosevelt's successor,William Howard Taft, in addition to expanding the office wing, constructed the Oval Office, leaving the space previously occupied by the president's desk freely available.[5]: 10 However, despite a fire breaking out in the West Wing onChristmas Eve 1929 during theHoover administration,[2]: 210 [6] instead of expanding the West Wing as planned, Hoover elected to have the building reconstructed and repaired to avoid public criticism in light of the recentstock market crash.[3]: 21 [7]: 116 In 1933, early in theFranklin Roosevelt administration, the new president began a series of meetings with staff architectEric Gugler to enlarge and modify the West Wing as planned previously by his predecessor.[2]: 214 [3]: 21 When Franklin Roosevelt relocated the Oval Office in 1934, this windowless room received a skylight; while it was initially lit with sunlight from an installed shaft, this would later be replicated in August 1988 with fluorescent light.[5]: 10
Franklin Roosevelt referred to the leftover windowless space as the "Fish Room" and used it to store his fishing trophies as well as atropical fishaquarium.[1][5]: 10 His successors, PresidentsTruman,Eisenhower, andKennedy reportedly disliked this name, with Eisenhower preferring to call it "that room over there".[1] Continuing the fish theme, President Kennedy hung a mountedsailfish he had caught inAcapulco on his honeymoon.[1][5]: 10
On March 12, 1969,[8][9] PresidentNixon gave the room its current name, the Roosevelt Room, to honor Theodore Roosevelt who started the West Wing and Franklin D. Roosevelt who enlarged it to its current size.[1] Portraits and mementos of bothRoosevelts[5]: 10 were placed in the room. The room prominently displays Theodore Roosevelt's 1906Nobel Peace Prize for hisefforts to end theRusso-Japanese War and hisposthumous 2001Medal of Honor.[1]
Continuing in Nixon's direction, it is a tradition to display memorabilia and portraits of both Roosevelt presidents. Often,Alfred Jonniaux'sPortrait Painting of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1958)[10] and Theodore Roosevelt'sequestrian portrait byTade Styka titledRough Rider (c. 1909) will be displayed prominently in the room.[4]: 349 It also displays cast bronze bas-relief plaques depicting profilebusts of Theodore Roosevelt byJames Earle Fraser and Franklin D. Roosevelt[11] byJohn M. DeStefano.[5]: 11-12
A number of other paintings are also often on display in the room, such asCrossing the River Platte (c.1871) byWorthington Whittredge[4]: 166-167 andView of the City of Washington from the Virginia Shore (1858) byWilliam Macleod.[4]: 128-129 [5]: 11-12 PresidentReagan displayedLooking Up The Yosemite Valley byAlbert Bierstadt, on loan from theHaggin Museum.[12]
The east wall of the room is a half circle, with a centered fireplace and doors on either side. The room has no windows and is lit by a false skylight. A large conference table seating a maximum of 16 is located in the center. The room is painted a buff color with white trim. Atriglyph molding, similar to that found inIndependence Hall, encircles the room. The furniture is mostly 20th-century reproductions ofChippendale andQueen Anne style furniture.[citation needed]
The south wall is lined by aflag of the United States and flags representing thepresident, thevice president, and those representing theU.S. Armed Forces withcampaign streamers attached.[1]
In August 2017, PresidentTrump undertook a major renovation of the West Wing; while initially only intending to make repairs and upgrades to theHVAC andIT systems, additional work on the interior paint and carpet was completed. Consequently, the beige Obama-era carpet of the Roosevelt Room was replaced with a more detailed gray and white geometric design, and two large,golden eagles purchased from aMarylandantique shop by aGSA West Wing historian were placed upon pedestals.[13][14][15]
The space occupied by what is now the Roosevelt Room exists in the location of Theodore Roosevelt'sfirst West Wing office and a correspondinganteroom. When Taft instead moved to the Oval Office, the space became a waiting room. After Franklin Roosevelt's 1934 remodeling, he assigned it its current role as a centrally located conference room across the newly repositioned Oval Office,[5]: 10 delegating the room forNational Security Council meetings or as a holding room for distinguished visitors to the president.[16]
Kennedy used the room as a spillover space for small meetings and other gatherings.[1]
His successor, PresidentJohnson, declaring the space "Presidential Reception Room",[5]: 10 used the room for radio and television broadcasting. In 1965, a proposal byABC,CBS, andNBC to set up permanent television and radio equipment for broadcasting was under consideration by theJohnson administration.[17] However, the plan fell through since the room was considered too small.[18] In 1969, Nixon would assign this purpose to a newly constructed room in the West Wing:James S. Brady Press Briefing Room.[19]
After his rededication as the Roosevelt Room, President Nixon used it as a space for members of Congress and other important callers.[1]
The Roosevelt Room continues to be used for staff meetings and has increasingly been used to announce the appointment or nomination of new staff members. Unlike the rest of the West Wing, it does not exist for some specialized purpose but serves a more general role as a room for presidential activities fully equipped forteleconferencing.[1] The room is used as a preparation room by large delegations meeting with the president, before entering the Oval Office.[citation needed]
Monkman 2000 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).Washington, D. C., Dec. 24.-[Special.]—A spectacular fire that originated in the basement and spread rapidly through the upper sections of the structure, wrecked the executive office wing of the White House tonight... The executive offices building was erected in 1903 at the time the interior of the White House Itself was remodeled and reconstructed.
On March 12, 1969, the Fish Room in the West Wing of the White House was renamed the Roosevelt Room.
The room previously known as the Fish Room, in the West Wing of the White House, will in the future be referred to as the Roosevelt Room. The West Wing was added during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt.
During his first term as President of the United States, Ronald Reagan requestedLooking Up the Yosemite Valley by Albert Bierstadt, which was displayed in the White House Roosevelt Room. The painting reminded him of his home state of California.
There was also a room we called the Fish Room. What we refer to as the Fish Room today is the Roosevelt Room, not the Cabinet Room. The Fish Room was a room off the President's office, but still in between the Cabinet Room and the other rooms... The Fish Room was used for Security Council meetings and also as a holding room for distinguished visitors when they came to see the President. They were escorted into this room. We refer to it as the Fish Room, because it had some of Roosevelt's trophies on the wall, plus the fish tanks, and this gave the visitors something to look at, sort of calm him down before he saw the President.
An earlier plan to convert the so-called Fish Room, just across the hall from the President's office, into a TV studio has been definitely abandoned because the space has been deemed too small.
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