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<\/p>\nWhat was dismantled today isn’t just marble or plaster; it is a reflection of how easily history can be erased when power forgets purpose.<\/p>\n
Chelsea Clinton
\n\u00a0|\u00a0 Opinion contributor<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tourists in Washington, DC, are unhappy about White House construction<\/p>\n
USA TODAY’s White House Correspondent Zac Anderson spoke to tourists who flocked to the White House to get a look at the construction.<\/p>\n
Although I spent many of my formative years living in the White House<\/a>, I always knew it wasn\u2019t my house. It was my home, absolutely, but not my house. The White House<\/a> belongs to the American people, and that\u2019s why we call it the People\u2019s House<\/a>. I never forgot that.<\/p>\n So yes, while I played hide-and-seek in the White House residence and danced outside the closed doors of many a state dinner, I never once thought, \u201cthis is my house\u201d in the way my friends thought of theirs.<\/p>\n I was 12 years old the first time I walked through the doors of the White House as a soon-to-be resident, not a visitor. First lady Barbara Bush gave my mom and me a tour, sharing where her grandchildren would stay when they came to visit and what their families\u2019 favorite foods were.<\/p>\n Eight years later, my family would welcome the Bush family back, and I remember telling Jenna and Barbara Bush about my favorite places, the friends I had made who worked at the White House and, yes, my favorite foods.<\/p>\n I always had the sense that the Bush family, like mine, understood that we are all merely passing through, even while our parents were shaping American history. It was the same sensibility I had when meeting Presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon as well as first ladies Jacqueline Kennedy and Lady Bird Johnson, and others who had, for a time, called the White House home.<\/p>\n All presidents make changes to the White House \u2013 including my family<\/p>\n While it is only a temporary home, every president and their families have made changes. President Theodore Roosevelt built the modern-day West Wing<\/a>, and a few years later, President William Howard Taft built the Oval Office<\/a>. President Franklin Roosevelt developed the East Wing<\/a> and installed a swimming pool, which President Nixon later turned into the White House briefing room<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mrs. Kennedy famously redecorated the state rooms<\/a>. My mom was the first first lady to bring contemporary art into the White House, a Georgia O\u2019Keeffe<\/a>. First lady Michelle Obama added a vegetable garden<\/a> (my mom had only planters full of tomatoes on the roof). And Mrs. Melania\u00a0Trump, in her husband\u2019s first term, renovated the Rose Garden, adding limestone paths<\/a> and preserving the surrounding flowers.<\/p>\n The White House Historical Association believes that a garden has been on that site since the mid-1800s, when President Ulysses\u00a0Grant was in office<\/a>, or for more than half of the country’s life. Presidents and first ladies have added elements for efficiency, for comfort, for aesthetics, all of which are then cared for by the extraordinary staff of electricians, plumbers, painters, arborists, gardeners, butlers, housekeepers, chefs, ushers and historians.<\/p>\n Many of those professionals spend substantially more years working in the White House than any presidential family does living in it.<\/p>\n