President Donald Trump’s plan to paint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building white to match the White House is drawing fierce opposition from preservation experts, who warn the project could permanently damage one of Washington’s most significant historic structures.
More than two dozen preservation, materials and heritage experts are challenging the Trump administration’s proposal in district court, arguing the move is unnecessary, expensive and potentially irreversible, and Washington Post columnist Philip Kennicott slammed the president’s plan as a “terrible idea.”
“Trump’s architectural follies always have some measure of the absurd to them,” Kennicott wrote. “The overwhelming gold ornament of the modestly scaled Oval Office is a comic absurdity. The algae bloom and shoddy work on the Reflecting Pool is an epic absurdity, because karma came quickly and the questions it raised about competence played out before the world.”
“The plan to cover the Eisenhower Executive Office Building is a tragic absurdity, because there is no good reason to do it and paint could permanently disfigure and damage the structure,” the columnist added. “Unlike the Reflecting Pool, the results won’t come quickly in this case, or generate as much attention.”
Architect and structural engineer Stephen Kelley, who has worked on preservation projects ranging from ancient Roman ruins to historic Chicago skyscrapers, says the EEOB’s granite exterior — quarried in Maine roughly 140 years ago — was “constructed for the ages.” He and other experts fear that cleaning and coating the stone could trap moisture, damage joints and require the building to be repainted indefinitely.
Beyond the physical risks, critics say the case carries a troubling legal precedent. By routing the project through the White House Office of Administration rather than the General Services Administration, the administration may be sidestepping laws requiring historic and environmental review. Greg Werkheiser of Cultural Heritage Partners warns this could let any presidential pet project bypass regulatory oversight simply by transferring it to the president’s own office.
A White House official defended the arrangement, saying the Office of Administration performs necessary due diligence and allows the project to be managed more efficiently given the building’s disrepair.
The dispute echoes an earlier chapter in the EEOB’s history when a government commission in 1957 recommended demolishing the building entirely, calling it outdated. It survived, and is now considered part of one of Washington’s great architectural ensembles.
One anonymous preservation expert likened the painting plan to unilaterally altering a masterpiece, arguing that no single person should have the authority to impose such changes without accountability.
“Cutting the public out of the review process isn’t just about expediting the president’s demands, his need for an arch or giant new ballroom,” Kennicott wrote. “Rather, it’s about eliminating the public entirely, reducing an engaged citizenry to an aggregation of impotent and alienated individuals, for whom new buildings and monuments arrive without warning, and old ones disappear in the dark of night.”
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