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What the White House could have looked like

By
Updated on March 15, 2024
Written by
G. John Cole
Graeme has been Senior Writer for our parent company (NeoMam Studios) since 2013. His main role at HouseFresh is writing in-depth articles to accompany the original studies and data visualizations produced in partnership with the NeoMam team.

This is the White House as no-one has ever seen it.

In 1792, George Washington held a competition to design a house for the president. Winning architect James Hoban built the neoclassical mansion that would soon become known as the White House – and today its image is seared into the United States’ collective imagination.

But it could have looked very different. The president personally considered at least six designs, but the runners-up were immediately consigned to history. Many of the original drawings are archived at the Maryland Center for History and Culture, and three of these are not publicly available. HouseFresh has worked closely with the Maryland Center to access these alternative visions of the White House and recreate them in an exclusive new set of digital renders.

For the first time ever you can see how the White House could have looked like had a different competition entry been selected.

We talked to Vivien Barnett, Curatorial Assistant at the The Maryland Center for History and Culture, who gave us some insight into what it takes to preserve these plans:

The plans are currently housed in custom-made archival storage mounts. We use acid-free archival boards to sandwich each drawing, and most have a custom cut mat that provides a window into the mount so the object is still accessible in storage. Many are also covered with a sheet of mylar or acid-free tissue to provide further protection. Aside from that, they are stored in a closed flat-file unit in a temperature-controlled room.”

Out of the archive and realistically computer-generated, here are five visions of the White House that might have been.

Jefferson’s plan for the White House

Jefferson’s Plan. ID 1976.88.6, RS2348_1976.88.6, 1976.88.8, RS8387_1976-88-9, RS8388_1976-88-10. Courtesy of the Maryland Center for History and Culture. mdhistory.org

Thomas Jefferson was Secretary of State at this time, and closely involved with the administration of the competition. But he was also an architect and enthusiast of classical European design. Experts attribute a losing entry labelled “Abraham Faws” to Jefferson. The ‘real’ Faws submitted his own, amateurish entry, and Jefferson’s anonymous design was later attributed to Faws due to a clerical error.

Jefferson’s Plan. ID 1976.88.6, RS2348_1976.88.6, 1976.88.8, RS8387_1976-88-9, RS8388_1976-88-10. Courtesy of the Maryland Center for History and Culture. mdhistory.org

Jefferson would move into the White House as president in 1801, describing the mansion as “big enough for two emperors, one Pope and the grand Lama.” All the same, he couldn’t help himself but expand on it, adding colonnades and other features to shape the White House as it now looks.

Philip Hart’s plan for the White House

Hart’s Plan. ID 1976.88.15, 1976.88.16, 1976.88.17. Courtesy of the Maryland Center for History and Culture. mdhistory.org

The competition to design the White House was part of a broader challenge to suggest architecture for Washington’s seat of power. Phillip Hart was an amateur architect – more likely a professional builder – who submitted proposals for both the president’s house and the Capitol.

Hart’s Plan. ID 1976.88.15, 1976.88.16, 1976.88.17. Courtesy of the Maryland Center for History and Culture. mdhistory.org

Hart’s White House echoes his vaguely absurd Capitol sketches. The foreshortened top floor and faux-Renaissance style lacks the style and sophistication that Washington desired from a building that should, “in size, form, and elegance… look beyond the present day.”

Andrew Mayfield’s plan

Mayfield’s Plan. ID 1976.88.22, 1976.88.23, 1976.88.24. Courtesy of the Maryland Center for History and Culture. mdhistory.org

Andrew Mayfield Carshores was a linguist and former British soldier and teacher. His simple design reflects pre-Revolutionary War architecture, characterized by America’s colonial period of Georgian, English-style buildings.

Mayfield’s Plan. ID 1976.88.22, 1976.88.23, 1976.88.24. Courtesy of the Maryland Center for History and Culture. mdhistory.org

Carshore’s steeply-pitched roofs are bordered with a lead walkway, with a rainwater reservoir in the roof of the main block. But to the judges, his work lacked a vital spark. According to architectural historian Hugh Howard, Carshore was a ‘gentleman amateur’ and his rejected entry may be the only building he ever designed.

Jacob Small’s plan

Small’s Plan. ID 1976.88.33, 1976.88.36, 1976.88.37, 1976.88.38. Courtesy of the Maryland Center for History and Culture. mdhistory.org

Jacob Small submitted four entries to the 1792 contest. Author Patrick Phillips-Shrock highlights that Small’s White House designs were thought to be inspired by two iconic buildings from that time: Mount Vernon, George Washington’s plantation estate house, and the Maryland State House in Annapolis.

Small’s Plan. ID 1976.88.33, 1976.88.36, 1976.88.37, 1976.88.38. Courtesy of the Maryland Center for History and Culture. mdhistory.org

Small connects the stable and kitchen blocks to the main house via arcades. But his maze-like interior of hallways and mysterious staircases would have been awkward for the president.  Curiously, Small did anticipate oval-shaped rooms for the White House – but he failed to integrate them into his broader design in any meaningful way.

James Diamond’s plan

Diamond’s Plan. ID 1976.88.54, 1976.88.55, 1976.88.56. Courtesy of the Maryland Center for History and Culture. mdhistory.org

Originally from Ireland, James Diamond was an architect and builder. Diamond’s White House is set around a rectangular court. However, Diamond notes on his design that “the Open Court may be changed to a Picture Gallery and Lighted from the Top, which would have a grand Effect.”

Diamond’s Plan. ID 1976.88.54, 1976.88.55, 1976.88.56. Courtesy of the Maryland Center for History and Culture. mdhistory.org

Diamond’s design incorporates sophisticated design elements like Ionic columns and window frames capped with pediments. But the staircases are positioned inconveniently far from the entrance, and the overall grandness is thought to have been too ornate for George Washington’s tastes.

Insight into early American architectural imaginings

The contest to design the White House reflects democracy in America as it would evolve: the opportunity was open to everybody, but the prize went to a man whom the president already knew.

However, Hoban’s architectural proposal answered Washington’s requirements – and today, despite the additions and refinements over the years, it is hard to imagine the president’s house any other way. In fact, Hoban’s neoclassical structure would come to typify America’s federal architectural style. But HouseFresh’s digital renders of these archive blueprints are designed to help you picture how things could have been.

METHODOLOGY & SOURCES

About the author

G. John Cole

Graeme has been Senior Writer for our parent company (NeoMam Studios) since 2013. His main role at HouseFresh is writing in-depth articles to accompany the original studies and data visualizations produced in partnership with the NeoMam team.