President Trump’s 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom, set to rise from the rubble of what was, until last week, the building’s East Wing, will be the first grand banquet hall at the People’s House since it opened in 1800.
Once a mainstay of the Gilded Age, when high society gathered in the great mansions of Manhattan and Newport, R.I., the ballroom has fallen out of favor as a coveted amenity of the very rich. And yet, for a festive few, a palatial home is not complete without a room that pairs best with champagne flutes and a 12-piece band.
“It’s a great luxury to offer a place where people can come together, and the ballroom is that type of gesture,” said Thomas Jayne, an interior designer who, despite his appreciation for the feature, does not have a ballroom of his own.
But RuPaul does. In the Beverly Hills home that the queen of drag shares with his husband, RuPaul created a gargantuan ballroom with a 24-foot ceiling, black-and-white floors and a Hollywood Regency-style fireplace. The furniture is on wheels so it can be rolled out for dancing in the space, which he refers to as his disco room. Fittingly, it has 26 disco balls (the largest is five feet in diameter) that rotate and light up.
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