Rebuilding the White House

President John Adams first occupied the President’s House on November 1, 1800. It stood for thirteen years and eight months until it was burned during the British invasion in August 1814. After a concerted effort by Congress to move the capital to Cincinnati, the government appointed two architects to "repair" the Federal City's public buildings: Benjamin Henry Latrobe, an Englishman of skill in architecture and engineering, worked on the Capitol; and Hoban rebuilt the White House. Hoban completed the work in 1817, but he returned in 1824 to build the portico on the south for President James Monroe, and in 1829 to add the portico on the north for President Andrew Jackson.

Time, and occupants with different needs, have altered the White House in many ways. However, the White House image famous throughout the world is Hoban's entirely. It is a handsome residence, embellished with unquestionably the finest architectural stone carving produced in America at that time an august house, yet a house and not a palace. And when Hoban rebuilt it, he was ordered to make it as it had been, which he did, perpetuating the image and his own claim to a place in history.