How many many people can be seated in the White House dining room?
Invitations to White House dinners are among Washington’s highest social prizes. The State Dining Room, named for occasions when the President entertains visitors from other nations, was used by Thomas Jefferson as an office between 1801 and 1809. Since that time, dinner guests have been seated at a variety of table shapes and sizes, depending on the formality of the occasion and changing fashions. Initially, official dinners in the State Dining Room were held for about 32 people. In the 1880s, I-shaped tables expanded the room’s capacity to as many as 65 diners. In 1902, architect Charles F. McKim increased the size of the State Dining Room by about one-third by annexing the west end of the cross hall. He and the Theodore Roosevelts first considered installing an official guest suite in this corner, but decided that a larger dining room would better serve the President’s social commitments. During the Harding administration in the early 1920s, 104 people could be served in the State D
