When President Harry S. Truman undertook a large-scale renovation of the White House in the 1940s, the place was in such a state of disrepair that the leg of his daughter’s piano fell through the floor.
As he embarked on a major overhaul, Mr. Truman involved stakeholders far and wide.
Working with the House and Senate, Mr. Truman appointed a bipartisan, six-person commission to oversee the project. He consulted the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Commission of Fine Arts, which approved sketches made by Lorenzo S. Winslow, the White House architect, as well as smaller details like fabric samples and color schemes.
Funds for the project — more than $5 million at the time — were approved by Congress after significant debate.
President Trump, who is carrying out the biggest construction project on the White House grounds since the Truman administration, is bypassing all of that.
He demolished the East Wing on his own authority and at breakneck speed to make way for a $300 million ballroom. Only days after heavy machinery began smashing into the East Wing, it was a pile of rubble on Thursday — even though Mr. Trump initially said the project would not dismantle parts of the White House.
“Truman was a student of history, and he definitely wanted to have a lot of eyes on what was going on,” said Jon Taylor, a historian at the University of Central Missouri who has written four books about Mr. Truman. “It was not like we go in and we’re going to demolish, and then we’re going to decide. They were very intentional going in about what needed to be done.”
Mr. Trump has not taken the project to Congress for funding or debate, instead saying he and private donors would provide the money. No bipartisan commission is overseeing the construction. Money for the project is going into a fund that is not subject to transparency laws.
And while some Democrats have declared Mr. Trump’s actions to be illegal, the president was able to circumvent the strict review process for historic buildings because of a provision in the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 that exempts many federal buildings, including the White House.
Mr. Trump did not submit plans related to the demolition to the National Capital Planning Commission, which reviews federal development projects.
In July, the Trump administration installed Will Scharf, Mr. Trump’s staff secretary and former personal lawyer, as the commission’s chairman.
Mr. Scharf has said that it was unnecessary for Mr. Trump to go to the commission ahead of a demolition, but that he expects the president to submit plans for the ballroom before the construction phase of the project.
Mr. Trump is not expected to involve Congress, and has said he is not seeking taxpayer dollars. Instead, the financial director of Mr. Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, Meredith O’Rourke, has been raising private funds for the ballroom. That money is being deposited in the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit, tax-exempt entity that is not subject to transparency laws.
The White House has released a list of donors that features some of the most influential businesses in the country, including Amazon, Apple, Booz Allen Hamilton, Caterpillar, Coinbase and Comcast.
Mr. Trump’s ballroom plans also differ drastically from Mr. Truman’s renovation.
“The reason that these renovations went forward is because they were absolutely necessary for the place to be livable,” Marc Selverstone, the director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, said of Mr. Truman’s renovations. “And that seems to be quite a different rationale than the one that is being provided now.”
In 1947, while Mr. Truman took a bath upstairs, a Blue Room chandelier threatened to crash down on his wife and her guests directly below. He said the upstairs floor “sagged and moved like a ship at sea.” The following year, his daughter Margaret’s piano broke through the floor of the family quarters.
Upon investigating the situation in 1948, engineers confirmed that the White House was in danger of collapse.
The beams holding up the State Dining Room “should have fallen long ago” and were “staying up there from force of habit only,” W. E. Reynolds, commissioner of the Public Building Service, wrote to Mr. Truman. The East Room ceiling had drooped six inches, with cracks “rapidly extending outward indicating immediate danger of the ceiling falling,” Howell G. Crim, the chief usher of the White House, wrote.
Decades later, the White House is not in nearly as rough shape. The East Wing had been used for years for the first lady’s offices and ceremonial purposes, and as the entrance to the White House for millions of tourists.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said there would not be much to miss.
“It was never thought of as being much,” he said of the East Wing. “It was a very small building.”
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, defended Mr. Trump’s approach to the project on Thursday, saying he was not the first president to refurbish the White House. She did acknowledge that Mr. Trump’s initial, less destructive, plans had changed.
“With any construction project, there are changes over time as you assess what the project is going to look like,” she said.
“The East Wing is going to be more beautiful and modern than ever before,” she added. “And in addition, there will be a big, beautiful ballroom that can hold big parties and state visits for generations to come.”
Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.
Ashley Ahn covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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