Inside Trump’s Push to Make the White House Ballroom as Big as Possible
President Trump’s ever-growing vision has caused tension with contractors. His architect has taken a step back as the president personally manages the project.
As President Trump took a stroll on the White House roof in August, generating
headlines and questions about what he was up to, the man walking beside him was little noticed.
Wearing his signature bow tie, James McCrery, a classical architect who runs a small Washington firm known for its work building Catholic churches, was discussing how to execute Mr. Trump’s vision for a ballroom on the White House grounds.
Mr. McCrery’s work has been embraced by conservatives who believe federal buildings should be designed with an eye toward the grandeur of ancient Greek and Roman structures. He often talks of how his design work is carried out in service of God and the church, according to people who have worked with him.
It might have seemed an odd pairing: a man who designs cathedrals working for a man who once built casinos, and is now president of the United States.
But McCrery Architects got to work on the initial drawings for the project, sketching out a design with high ceilings and arched windows reminiscent of Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors. It would have the latest security features, including bulletproof glass. Gold furniture, known to please the president, was added to the renderings.
It was flashy enough to impress a man of Mr. Trump’s tastes, while largely matching the style of the historic White House without overshadowing it. That’s when things got tricky.
In offering up his initial design, Mr. McCrery could not have known that Mr. Trump’s vision for the project was growing. What started as a 500-seat ballroom connected to the East Wing grew to 650 seats. Next, he wanted a 999-seat ballroom, then room for 1,350. Even as Mr. Trump assured the public in July that the ballroom would not touch the existing structure, he already had approved plans to
demolish the East Wing to make way for something that could hold several thousand people, according to three people familiar with the timeline.
The latest plan, which officials said was still preliminary, calls for a ballroom much larger than the West Wing and the Executive Mansion. Mr. Trump has said publicly that he would like a ballroom big enough to hold a crowd for a presidential inauguration.
The size of the project was not the only issue raising alarms. Mr. Trump also told people working on the ballroom that they did not need to follow permitting, zoning or code requirements because the structure is on White House grounds, according to three people familiar with his comments. (The firms involved have insisted on following industry standards.)
In recent weeks, Mr. McCrery has pulled back from day-to-day involvement in the project, two people familiar with the matter told The New York Times. They emphasized that Mr. McCrery was still involved as a consultant on the design and proud to be working for Mr. Trump.
A White House official acknowledged that there had been disagreements between Mr. Trump and Mr. McCrery,
a dynamic first reported by the Washington Post.
Through a representative, Mr. McCrery declined requests for an interview. This account of Mr. Trump’s personal drive to undertake one of the most significant renovations in the history of the White
House is based on interviews with five people with knowledge of the project, most of whom asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations, along with the president’s own statements and planning documents released by the White House.
