Donald Trump displaying an artist's impression of the new ballroom slowly taking shape at the White House in Washington. Photo / The Washington Post via Getty Images
When King Charles and Queen Camilla arrive at the White House on Monday local time, United States President Donald Trump hopes to flaunt his latest renovation: a new black granite path that the royals are expected to take to the Oval Office.
“It’s called charcoal,” Trump told reporters this week, touting the contrast with the White House’s white walls.
The renovation project began last month, with the US President eager to replace decades-old beige Tennessee flagstone with his handpicked dark granite slabs before the royal visit.
All modern presidents have used the Oval Office as a tool of power and diplomacy, showing off their personal touches to the world’s most famous workspace.
Trump - perhaps predictably - has gone further, transforming parts of the West Wing and its environs with a distinctive aesthetic that he displays to foreign dignitaries and other VIPs.
Gold lettering, evoking the signs at Mar-a-Lago and other Trump properties, now welcomes visitors to “The Oval Office” and “The West Wing”.
A row of plaques, celebrating some Republican presidents and mocking Democrats, including presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, now line the pathway along the colonnade outside.
Several signs highlight the changes overseen by the US President, including new fixtures and lights, and he has repeatedly touted them in public remarks.
One plaque, written by Trump to celebrate the marble flooring he installed in the Palm Room, reads: “Such attention to detail is rarely seen in the modern era!”
The US President has personally inspected the renovations and offered feedback to workers. He has interrupted policy meetings to extol the changes - a phenomenon captured on camera this week when he repeatedly encouraged reporters attending a drug price announcement in the Oval Office to look at the new granite floor outside.
Trump’s West Wing renovations have also assumed some personal importance given the lengthy time needed to build his planned White House ballroom - currently a large hole where the East Wing used to be.
Historic preservationists have sued to halt the project, which probably faces years of work. It is not yet clear whether the President will get to enjoy the facility before his term ends in January 2029.
But Trump can remake the West Wing now - and has, repeatedly.
Some past White House officials fret over changes to what they characterise as the timeless nature of a building known as “The People’s House”.
Rufus Gifford, who helped plan major events as the White House’s chief protocol officer under President Joe Biden, said: “When you look back at the photo evidence of this time, it will feel like Donald Trump’s office, not the Oval Office, and that’s depressing to me”.
Others call Trump’s renovations tacky, pointing to the gilding in the Oval Office, the paved-over Rose Garden and other changes that they say clash with the classical architecture of the nation’s capital.
Graydon Carter, the former editor of Vanity Fair who helped coin the infamous epithet “short-fingered vulgarian” to describe Trump in the 1980s, wrote: “Labelling the West Wing with lettering calling it ‘The West Wing’ is simply tragic. As are so many of Trump’s signature gilded flourishes.”
Trump’s latest new touch is the “Presidential Walk of Fame”. For centuries, presidents have walked a path under a colonnade initially conceived by Thomas Jefferson that winds from the executive mansion to the present-day West Wing and Oval Office.
Now the path is lined with plaques installed and largely written by Trump, memorialising past presidents. One mocks “Sleepy Joe Biden” as “the worst President in American history” and has an image of an autopen in lieu of Biden’s photo. A plaque for Obama characterises his healthcare law as “the highly ineffective ‘Unaffordable’ Care Act” that cost Democrats control of Congress.
The US President last year paved over the Rose Garden’s grass, saying that bad weather had too often rendered the garden too muddy to host events. He added tables and chairs with striped umbrellas that resemble those at his Mar-a-Lago Club.
The US President also has installed several statues, including ones honouring America’s Founding Fathers, which he has displayed to visitors.
The most recent addition is a sculpture by artist Chas Fagan depicting America’s Revolutionary War. It’s unknown whether Trump plans to display it to the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of King George III.
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