East Wing history: President Theodore Roosevelt reshaped it in 1902

A Washington, D.C., man, eager to expand his home office, demolished part of it this week to make way for a new addition. A national incident ensued.

The man, of course, is President Donald Trump, and the structure under the wrecking ball is the East Wing of the White House, traditional domain of the first lady and her staff. The administration says the demolition is part of a $300 million modernization that will include construction of a 90,000-square-foot ballroom big enough to hold 999 guests.

Comparing the administration’s renderings of this ballroom with photographs of Trump's southern White House, Mar-a-Lago, both laden in gilt, The Associated Press this week detected a "strong resemblance." The project will be funded by donors, including the president himself, not by taxpayers, and will finish before the president leaves office, the administration said.

There is a Long Island thread to the East Wing's history. In 1902, under President Theodore Roosevelt and first lady Edith Roosevelt — whose "Summer White House" was Sagamore Hill, in Oyster Bay — the actual White House underwent a major renovation that included the East Terrace, which would become part of the East Wing, and largely established the shape of the modern complex.

That renovation added a "glass enclosed" East Wing with "a coatroom, a gallery and a circular driveway," providing an "elegant entrance" for receiving guests, according to the White House Historical Association website.

In 1942, when the federal government was growing in response to World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a distant cousin of the earlier president, ordered another rebuild. The new East Wing contained "a formal entrance for guests, offices on the first and second floors, and an air raid shelter underground," according to the association. Congressional Republicans "labeled the expenditure as wasteful, with some accusing Roosevelt of using the project to bolster his presidency’s image," according to the association.

Similar accusations have been made over the past week, though this time from congressional Democrats.

"Another ego project for Donald Trump," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a video posted to X that criticized the president for turning to the building project amid the government shutdown.

"We asked Donald Trump to cut health care costs. Instead, he cut off a wing of the White House," tweeted Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Both posts featured images of the demolition.

The CEO of the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation, Carol Quillen, said in a statement that the size of the addition would "overwhelm" the main building and may "permanently disrupt the carefully balanced classical design of the White House."

The administration responded at full volume: "Uhinged leftists and their Fake News allies are clutching their pearls over President Donald J. Trump’s visionary addition of a grand, privately funded ballroom to the White House," it said in a news release, defending a "bold, necessary addition that echoes the storied history of improvements and additions from commanders-in-chief to keep the executive residence as a beacon of American excellence."

The East Wing contained the White House’s largest gathering space, known as the East Room, which held just 200 guests. For certain large functions, staff had to install "a large and unsightly tent" on the lawn, the administration said when it announced its plans in July. It also said that presidents and staffers have longed for "a large event space on the White House complex" for the last 150 years, dating the start of the longing to the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant.

Susan Sarna, the former Sagamore Hill curator, now curator for the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota, said Trump’s renovations were "in line with what other presidents have done. ... It’s not unusual for a president to put their stamp on the White House."

The changes that occur with each administration are "part of our history, and our history continues," she said. Besides, she said, if she took umbrage at change, she would need to be mad at Theodore Roosevelt, too. "He took down the entire conservatory and turned it into a tennis court."

With AP