For decades, every president has made the Oval Office his own.
John F. Kennedy specially chose a rug in Harvard crimson, although he did not live to see its installation. Richard Nixon’s office featured a navy rug with gold stars, accented by gold curtains. Jimmy Carter surrounded himself with warmer, more natural shades. George H.W. Bush opted for powder blue as both a floor and window treatment.
The presidents have chosen different sofas, different coffee tables, different books for the shelves, different knick-knacks for the tables and paintings for the walls.
But none have had the aesthetic impact of President Donald Trump.
In his second term, Trump has endeavored to leave a more lasting footprint on the White House by drawing on his long career in real estate development. He paved the Rose Garden’s grassy center, erected two enormous flag poles and revealed plans to build a large ballroom on the East Wing to host events.
Trump’s Oval Office, though, has been the site of the most striking transformation so far.
The iconic space has been positively drenched in gold — curtains, of course, but also vases, frames, trophies, platters and vast amounts of gilding, including shiny curlicued moldings that ensure no part of the wall is left blank. This style is either Rococo or decidedly not Rococo.
An ivy plant that had adorned the Oval Office fireplace for over a half-century was replaced by lifeless objects. (The Washington Post figured out the ivy had been relocated to a greenhouse for safekeeping.)
Trump, it seems, has cast aside norms in decorating just as quickly in his second term as he has cast aside norms in governing. Anyone familiar with Trump Tower in Manhattan or his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida will not be surprised to see the full extent of his changes to the Oval, given his instinct to gild the properties that bear his name.
But that is also why his changes rub some people the wrong way. The White House — the People’s House — is not Trump’s own. First families may make changes to the residence to make it feel more comfortable during their stay, but the Oval Office is not part of a Trump-branded enterprise.
In the words of White Stripes singer Jack White, “It’s now a vulgar, gold leafed and gaudy professional wrestler’s dressing room.”
When first lady Jacqueline Kennedy renovated the White House in the early 1960s, she did so with an eye to the nation’s past. She collected furniture from the era of President James Monroe, who had ordered a large number of pieces from France after the White House was destroyed by a fire in 1814. Many of those were then sold at auction in 1860; Kennedy succeeded in reintroducing several to their original home. She also established the White House Historical Association, the nonpartisan organization that works to preserve the property and document its history to this day.
It was Kennedy who dusted off the Resolute Desk and placed it in the Oval Office.
Trump hand-picked the paintings now hanging en masse in the Oval from the same White House archives Kennedy worked to preserve.
But his renovations appear less evocative of the nation’s past than of the grand future he claims to herald.
And that’s not a great sign for American democracy.
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