The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. The residence was designed by Irish-born architect James Hoban in the Neoclassical style. Constructed between and , its exterior walls are Aquia Creek sandstone painted white. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in , he and architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe added low colonnades on each wing to conceal what then were stables and storage.
Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed Executive Residence in October Exterior construction continued with the addition of the semicircular South Portico in and the North Portico in Because of crowding within the executive mansion itself, President Theodore Roosevelt had all work offices relocated to the newly constructed West Wing in Eight years later, in , President William Howard Taft expanded the West Wing and created the first Oval Office , which was eventually moved and expanded.
In the Executive Residence, the third floor attic was converted to living quarters in by augmenting the existing hip roof with long shed dormers.
A newly constructed East Wing was used as a reception area for social events; Jefferson's colonnades connected the new wings. The East Wing alterations were completed in , creating additional office space. By , the residence's load-bearing walls and wood beams were found to be close to failure. Under Harry S. Truman , the interior rooms were completely dismantled and a new internal load-bearing steel frame was constructed inside the walls. On the exterior, the Truman Balcony was added.
Once the structural work was completed, the interior rooms were rebuilt. The present-day White House complex includes the Executive Residence, the West Wing, the East Wing, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building , which previously served the State Department and other departments it now houses additional offices for the president's staff and the vice president , and Blair House , a guest residence.
