President Donald Trump has full authority to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom at the White House, but the planning, process and messaging could have been smoother, the president of the White House Historical Association told a Palm Beach audience.
Speaking to a capacity crowd at The Breakers during the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce’s monthly breakfast meeting Nov. 18, Stewart D. McLaurin said decisions about White House construction are made by the federal government, which owns the building, and his organization has no role in that process.
McLaurin said the White House Historical Association, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in the early 1960s by then-first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, focuses instead on preserving the history of the residence and telling the stories of the people who lived and worked there.
Trump’s privately funded ballroom, estimated at $300 million and built on the site of the demolished East Wing, is expected to accommodate nearly 1,000 guests.
Donors with strong connections to Palm Beach, including Stephen Schwarzman, the Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation, J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul, and the Betty Wold Johnson Foundation, are helping to finance it.
“There is a need for a larger space,” McLaurin told the audience, noting that the White House’s state dining room can seat 124 guests, while the East Room can hold 200 guests for indoor seated events. “… How it’s done, where it’s done, the process and the communications, that’s really up to the president and the White House staff, and maybe that could have been done a little bit differently.
“But the building itself — the structure of the White House — is the government’s. That belongs to the government. We care for the people who have lived there, who have worked there, their stories and the artifacts that help tell their stories.”
The White House Historical Association works to preserve the history of the White House and share it with the public through education, research, and restoration efforts.
During a conversation with Matthew Swift, the chamber’s chair of the trustees, McLaurin discussed the historical association’s history and mission, his work preserving the White House’s legacy, and this year’s White House Christmas ornament.
What is the White House Historical Association? Do you manage the art? Do you do the landscaping? What do you do?
It’s an amazing organization. First lady Jacqueline Kennedy founded us in 1961. Imagine, she comes into the White House on the afternoon of Jan. 20 on Inauguration Day. She’s 31 years old, the newly minted first lady of the United States. And here’s a couple that, following President and Mrs. Eisenhower, this young, fresh dynamic — in fact President Kennedy had just said in his inaugural speech that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans — and here they are. They had every reason to believe they’d be in the White House for four years or perhaps even eight years, but that was tragically cut short due to the assassination. And they were only in the White House for three short years. But Mrs. Kennedy, that 31-year-old, was a young woman in a hurry. What she put in place was creating the association to be a ‘friends-of’ organization, like great museums have, and hiring the first curator that the White House had ever had to take care of the art and the objects. In fact, there had been no collection. Presidents would come and go, and so would the furnishings and the art. And all that she did in those three short years is still in place today.
Through the decades, what is your relationship with the people who actually live in the house? What’s your relationship with the first family?
Thirteen presidencies now, my predecessors and I have had the privilege of working with the families, and it’s a seamless handoff. I started with the Obamas, worked with the Trumps, worked with the Bidens, now the Trumps again, and we have not missed a beat. It’s been a very positive, productive relationship. Each has had very different interests in the house, but they’ve cared for the house in very special ways. We work closely and collaboratively with them on that, but also on education issues, to teach and tell the stories of the White House and its history.
You recently announced the acquisition of four Normal Rockwell paintings. Talk a little bit about that acquisition.
These four panels have hung in the West Wing of the White House from 1978 to 2022. They were privately owned, having been drawn by Norman Rockwell for the press secretary to Franklin Roosevelt. And they left in private hands, and in ’78 they came back on loan. They left in ’22, and the family put them up for auction. They are so iconic, because the four panels depict people waiting in the West Wing of the White House to meet the president. Their title is, “So You Want to Meet the President!” And (we were worried the panels could) be lost at auction to an offshore buyer or someone in the United States, and we would never see them again. Our board generously supported the acquisition (for $7.25 million), which was the largest investment of our time. But it gives us the opportunity to tell the story of this important work, who we are, what we do and why we think it’s important. It’s a work that we do that the government can’t do, shouldn’t do, wouldn’t do, and we take care to protect and preserve these iconic elements and moments, like this particular Rockwell.
You’re also responsible for the official portraits of the president and first lady in the White House?
At the end of each presidency, a president and first lady will select an artist, or we will recommend ones to them to consider, and that contract is signed by us, not by the president or the first lady, not by the White House. We are the contracting entity. We pay for those on behalf of the American people, so when you go into the White House today and you see that extraordinary gallery of former presidents and first ladies, those were acquired by the association. We hold those artists to a very small dollar amount. We think it’s a privilege to have your work of art perpetually hanging in the White House. We do not pay top dollar for artists, but we do have top artists.
Talk a little bit about the White House Christmas ornament and the history of the ornament.
If I had been in the office with Nancy Reagan in 1981, and a group of staff came in and said, “Let’s do a Christmas ornament,” I would have thought, “OK. Sure. Fine. Do a Christmas ornament.” But thank goodness they did, because this little ornament was the lifeblood of our organization for probably 40 years. And it has been American-made in a little town called Lincoln, Rhode Island, since 1981. Each one tells a story. It is not our mission, but it has made our mission possible by selling these across the country. It’s really almost a cult following of people who buy these. Once you start giving these to them, they end up buying them. So they’re pretty amazing.
The 2025 White House Christmas ornament honors 150 years of state dinners, showcasing two notable White House State china services and the traditions behind these events, the association said.
Priced at $24.95, the ornament can be purchased on the White House Historical Association’s website at Shop.WhiteHouseHistory.org.
Jodie Wagner is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at jwagner@pbdailynews.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Chamber speaker: Trump allowed to build ballroom, but approach could have been different
Reporting by Jodie Wagner, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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