The Second Floor

Until 1902 the first family quarters shared the Second Floor with the president's offices while the Third Floor was simply an attic. James Madison Randolph, grandson of Thomas Jefferson and the first presidential grandchild, as well as Esther Cleveland, Grover Cleveland's daughter and the first presidential child, were both born on this floor in the White House. The upstairs family quarters also witnessed the sorrow of Willie Lincoln's death and the long confinement of the mortally wounded President James Garfield. In 1927 the attic was enlarged and finished as a Third Floor while the White House roof was rebuilt.

The construction of the West Wing in 1902 removed the noise and disruption of the executive offices from the first family's residence. When the eastern end of the Second Floor was used for state business, the Center Hall was partitioned off to keep the public from wandering into the family apartments. As late as World War II, the "Great Passage" was described as cluttered, dark and dismal. Harry S. Truman had the space redesigned during his interior renovations of 1948-52, and it emerged as a comfortable sitting room and reception area.

The Treaty Room has been a popular space for a presidential study over the years. First Lady Lou Hoover converted the room into a parlor, decorating it with Colonial Revival furniture and calling it the Monroe Room. During the John F. Kennedy administration, the name "Treaty Room" was chosen to reflect the many important deliberations made in the room, including the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty signed by Kennedy on October 7, 1963. That treaty, and many others before and since, was signed on the "Treaty Table," a magnificent Victorian desk originally used as a cabinet table by Ulysses S. Grant.

On January 1, 1801, John Adams held the first presidential reception in the upstairs oval parlor. Abigail Fillmore housed the first White House library here in the early 1850s. In 1889, the Harrisons placed the first documented White House Christmas tree in this room used as a library and family parlor. President Franklin D. Roosevelt converted the room into his study, and it was in this room on December 7, 1941, that he learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. President Harry Truman continued to use the room as a study and opened access to a new balcony he added to the South Portico in 1948. The Yellow Oval Room, as it is now known, serves as a reception area and formal parlor where the president greets honored guests before leading them down the Grand Staircase to state functions.

Until it was converted into the President's Dining Room in 1961, the large northwest room on the Second Floor had been a bedchamber. It was once called the Prince of Wales Room, as the British heir to the throne slept here during an 1860 visit. Both the McKinleys and the Clevelands made it their master bedroom. White House children also used this bedroom. At a Nixon dinner party given here in the early 1970s, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, exclaimed, "My goodness ... this is the room where I had my appendix out!"

Before 1869, the West Sitting Hall was little more than a staircase landing lit by an elegant half moon window, or a lunette (which has its twin in the East Sitting Room). The presidents and first ladies would descend to the Cross Hall below on state occasions. President Ulysses Grant had the grand stair remodeled, allowing sitting space by the window. Charles McKim removed the steps completely in 1902 and the defunct landing became a private sitting area. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who screened the area off from the Center Hall, particularly enjoyed it. In the subsequent Truman Renovation, architects enclosed the hall with solid partitions and created a living room.