How Many Rooms Are In The White House?

Rooms Are In The White House

Last Updated on July 27, 2023 By Emma W. Thomas

The White House has 132 rooms, including 16 family and guest rooms, 1 main kitchen, and 35 bathrooms. The rest of the rooms serve various purposes, such as offices, formal and informal meeting rooms, dining rooms, and recreational spaces.

What Is The Layout Of The White House?

Generally, White House rooms are divided into three broad categories. They include the executive residence, the west wing, and the east wing.

Executive Residence

Originally, the executive residence was the center of the White House building. Both wings, i.e. east and west wings, were added later. It houses the president’s dwelling and contains rooms where ceremonies and official entertainment take place. It contains rooms such as the east room, green room, blue room, red room, state dining room, family dining room, map room, cross hall, the entrance hall, and a grand staircase. 

The executive residence’s ground floor has a diplomatic reception room, china room, vermeil room, library, map room, main kitchen, and other official offices. There is the yellow oval room, east and west splitting halls, white house master bedroom, president’s dining room, treaty room, and Lincoln bedroom on its second floor. Other rooms are the Queen’s bedroom, a smaller kitchen, a private dressing room, and two other small additional bedrooms. 

There is a white house solarium on its third floor, a game room, a small kitchen and diet kitchen, and a sitting room former President George w. Bush used as his workout room.

West Wing

This wing of the white house contains the president’s office, also known as the Oval Office, and most senior staff offices. It is large enough to house over 50 employees as it also includes the cabinet room where presidential meetings and businesses are carried out. The west wing also houses the white house situation room, Roosevelt Room, and James S. Brady press briefing room. 

East Wing

It does not contain much detail like the west wing and executive residence wings. It mainly contains additional offices and intermittently houses First Lady’s staff and the white house social office. Rosalynn Carter was the first person to call the east wing formally “the office of the first lady.” This wing was constructed during the 2nd world War to serve as an underground bunker and exit in emergencies. Recently it has come to act as a presidential emergency operations center.

What Rooms Are In The White House?

The second floor of the white house contains most of its important rooms, including the yellow oval room and presidential bedroom suites. Below are rooms in the white house and their corresponding floors.

Ground Floor

You will find the original kitchen, library, diplomatic reception, map room, china and vermeil room, and the north lawn extension on the ground floor. An original diplomatic reception room was initially a servants’ hall but was later transformed into a furnace room. There had been continuous changes until the first lady, Mamie Eisenhower, tuned it to a reception room upon receiving museum-quality antique furniture.  

A map room, also located on the ground floor of the white house, was originally contained in a small bedroom, and it carries with it top secret maps of the world. It has retained its purpose and name ever since the white house was constructed. 

State Floor

It is also commonly known as the first floor. It is referred to as the state floor as it contains green, red, and blue rooms. It also holds other rooms, such as the state dining room and east wing. The east wing is mostly associated with serving as a site for large social events within the white house. At first, the green room was used as a dining room where Thomas Jefferson and his family took their meals. 

It was later redesigned and renovated to create an oval-shaped drawing-room. The redesigned room was called the blue room and has ever since been used to act as the southern part of the executive residence. It also served as a formal reception for heads of other states, ambassadors, and other highly ranked people visiting the white house.

To the west of the blue room is the red room, originally known as President’s Antechamber. It is characterized by a small central circle with half-moons and curved trapezoids from Thomas Ustick Walter’s designs. The state dining room and chief usher’s office are also found on this floor.

It houses most private living spaces of the first family, consisting of their bedrooms and a kitchen. Some of those rooms are for entertaining official guests, but mostly, they are reserved for private use by the first family. Some of the rooms found on the second floor of the white house include the east sitting hall, Lincoln sitting room, and bedroom, the president’s dining room, the Queen’s bedroom, the west sitting halls, and the yellow oval room. You can also access the Truman Balcony from the second floor.

It carries about seven historic rooms, including the treaty room, Lincoln’s sitting and bedroom, the Queen’s sitting and bedroom, the east sitting room, and the yellow oval. All these can be changed if the sitting president wishes to redecorate or revise its architectural designs. Usually, the Queen’s bedroom and sitting room were reserved as guest rooms and were used by the president’s secretariats, mostly men. These rooms (the Queen’s bedroom and sitting room) were taken from the number of female royalties who used the room during their visits, such as Queen Elizabeth II of the UK and Queen Consort of King George. 

The treaty room is a historic room located between the Lincoln suite and the yellow oval. It was first referred to as a treaty room when John F. Kennedy signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in this room and has since been used to sign important treaties. On the other hand, the yellow oval room is the topmost executive oval room. It is used as the first family drawing room and a reception where the president greets dignitaries before dinners and lunches.

A presidential bedroom suite is also located on the second floor. It could be described as a small bedroom and living room for presidential use. It was mostly used as a study and living room for the president, and it still does even in the present day. However, it is different from the presidential large bedroom suite, which the president and first lady usually use as their private room. The purpose of the large bedroom is for instances where the president shares his bedroom with the first lady, which does not often happen due to his early and late meetings and personal idiosyncrasies. 

 Third Floor

It does not have many details as the features found here are mostly recreational. Some of these features include a sunroom with a wet bar, an outdoor rooftop promenade, and a billiards room.

The second floor carries the most important rooms, including well-maintained historical rooms such as the treaty rooms. Most presidents have preferred to maintain the history of the white house by not redesigning or restructuring historic rooms.

In What Ways Is The White House Secured?

It is known worldwide that the white house acts as residence to the first family. Being such a leader tends to be a dangerous prospect for the president’s life and his family. For this reason, high-security measures must be put in place. Some of the known safety measures that are in place for safety purposes of the white house include;

Bulletproof Windows

 Most windows are vulnerable to any form of firearm. It is surprising to see that the white house has countless windows. Materials used in the white house windows are the most impenetrable materials known. An attack that happened in 2011 proved their safety after seven rounds from a semi-automatic rifle were fired and not even a glass shattered. 

Use Infrared Sensors.

Every inch of the white house perimeter is surrounded by infrared sensors detecting any possible threat. Unlike the ones shown in films, they have invisible lasers, and they tend to cover everything, including the sky, surface, and underground.

Drones

The white house has employed its drones to act as security cameras and security options that can destroy any other drones unknown to them. 

A Strong Security Fence

Fencing in the white house was first erected in 1802 by President Thomas Jefferson and has received many changes ever since. By then, it was just a simple barricade to keep the president’s livestock within his property but has now become an 11-foot wall. It is made of steel and rebar, making it firm and strong.

How Many Bedrooms Are In The White House?

The number of official bedrooms in the White House can vary depending on its configuration and how each President and their family choose to use the rooms.

Traditionally, the White House has had four main bedrooms on the second floor. These include the President’s bedroom, the First Lady’s bedroom, a guest bedroom, and a bedroom for a close family member or personal aide. However, over the years, some of these rooms have been reconfigured for different purposes, and additional bedrooms have been added or removed based on the needs and preferences of the First Family.

Conclusion

The white house is the residential place of the president and his family. It has a total of 132 rooms. Other than the first family, most senior officials in the government have rooms in the white house, such as the security details. Some rooms are used for official purposes, while others are private and can only be accessed by the first family.

References:

https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/WH/glimpse/WH_Facts/html/facts.html
https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-many-rooms-are-in-the-white-house