the executive stables
The stables, built on the White House grounds over a period of a century, were never intended to be great architecture. Public interest was keen simply because they were the president’s stables. The first executive stable was a simple Georgian brick building, erected just off the grounds in 1800. Thomas Jefferson located a stable and carriage house in flanking wing dependencies built at the White House in 1806. After the British burned the White House in 1814, a frame stable was added to the end of the rebuilt west wing. In 1834, President Andrew Jackson directed the construction of a freestanding brick structure trimmed with Aquia sandstone located east of the White House.

Andrew Jackson’s stable was razed in 1857 to make way for the present south wing of the Treasury Department. A new structure was built on the east grounds south of the Treasury. A tragic fire took this building in 1864, destroying the Lincoln family horses. A replacement stable was erected on the west grounds. In 1871, that structure made way for the construction of the imposing State, War and Navy Building (today’s Eisenhower Executive Office Building). The last White House stable, a High Victorian mansard-roofed structure built during the Grant administration in 1871 and extended for Benjamin Harrison in 1891, was demolished in 1911.


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the last white house stable > click here
exhibit navigation
white house horses - intro V - carriages of the presidents VI - presidents on horseback VII - working horses at the white house VIII - the ceremonial role of horses II - the executive stables III - the theodore roosevelt family IV - presidents at the races IX - equestrian sports and leisure pursuits