When was the White House Built?
The White House was built after Congress established the District of Columbia as the permanent capital of the United States on July 16, 1790. The architect was chosen in a competition, which received nine proposals. James Hoban, an Irishman, was awarded the honor and construction began with the laying of the cornerstone on October 13, 1792. The building Hoban designed was modeled on the first and second floors of Leinster House, a ducal palace in Dublin, Ireland, which is now the seat of the Irish Parliament. Contrary to widely published myth, the North portico was not modelled on a similar portico on another Dublin building, the Viceregal Lodge (now Áras an Uachtaráin, residence of the President of Ireland). Its portico in fact postdates the White House portico’s design. The capital was placed on land ceded by two states—Virginia and Maryland—which both ceded the land to the federal government in response to a compromise with President Washington. The D.C. commissioners were charged b
The construction of the mansion started on the 13th day of October 1792 through the leadership of President John Adams. Even if the construction of the house was not yet finished, John Adams and First Lady Abigail Adams already stayed in the place. The construction of the White House continued for almost a decade. The executive residence was built in 1800 and the expansion of the building was finished in 1801 under the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. The Army of Great Britain burned some of the parts of the house in 1814. The reconstruction took place immediately and it was finished in 1948. Some of the modifications done in the place are the construction of the South Porico and North Porico in 1824 and 1829, respectively. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt initiated the relocation of some offices to the mansion’s West Wing. The building of the Oval Office was completed in 1909 under the presidency of William Howard Taft. In 1927, the attic in the third level was transformed into li
