When Vance Patterson learned last spring that President Donald Trump wanted to build a White House ballroom, he turned to the White House Historical Association to offer his help — $2.5 million to pay to demolish the East Wing and preserve its contents.
The nonprofit, founded by first lady Jacqueline Kennedy to help preserve and share the White House’s history, had recruited Patterson, a businessman and former GOP congressional candidate, as a high-net-worth donor, he said in an interview last week. Now Patterson saw an opportunity: help Trump tear down the White House’s existing East Wing to build a new ballroom.
“We wanted to participate, so they came up with a proposal that turned out to be $2.5 million to do the demolition and preserve everything that was in there,” Patterson said. By September 2025, he had settled on terms with the association, which set up detailed 3D photographs of the East Wing and helped arrange a White House tour for Patterson and his wife.
“We wanted to get our picture taken outside of the East Wing before it was torn down,” said Patterson, who added that he dealt only with the association and its president, Stewart McLaurin, and not White House officials when crafting his donation.
A spokesperson for the White House Historical Association said in a statement that Patterson’s donation was used for documentation of the East Wing and that no money went toward its October 2025 demolition or construction of Trump’s ballroom. The association declined to identify the spokesperson and did not make McLaurin available for an interview. The organization did not respond to questions about why Patterson believed his gift would be used for demolition. Patterson is not included among a list of ballroom donors obtained by The Washington Post.
For the association, new donors like Patterson have been crucial to help weather controversies wrought by Trump and his wholesale changes to the White House. Historians, preservationists and some supporters have criticized the group’s silence as Trump has applied his aesthetic to the presidential mansion and grounds, saying that his actions run afoul of Kennedy’s explicit goals for the organization and that it should have spoken up before Trump tore down the East Wing.
Four donors collectively representing more than $500,000 in donations told The Post they have decided to stop giving to the association, and philanthropists who represent millions of dollars in additional pledges have said they are frustrated and weighing whether to halt or withdraw their gifts, according to three people familiar with the situation.
Some past donors and staff also say the association has become too focused on trading on the prestige of its proximity to the White House, hosting glitzy events and raising the profile of its president, McLaurin, rather than its original mission of preservation and education.
“Trump destroyed the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden — dedicated in 1965 to the founder of the association — and they haven’t said one word about it. Not one word,” said Leon Pascucci, a retired interior designer who said he had given thousands of dollars to the association over 30-plus years before ending his support last year. “Instead, they have these lavish meals and events. … It’s unseemly.”
The association has also taken pains to avoid offending Trump, rebuffing reporters who sought answers about White House history and selectively sharing information with its supporters.
After Trump tore down the East Wing, donors deluged the association with complaints and demands to know what, if anything, could be done to stop him. McLaurin and his deputies instructed staff: Don’t tell anyone about Patterson’s donation or the detailed photos of the East Wing that the association had commissioned, according to four people familiar with the conversations.
“It didn’t feel right to mislead people, or tell them what I knew not to be true,” said one former staffer who received the instructions. “I got calls, every day, from members giving $50 to a quarter-million dollars or more. Many were incredibly disappointed by the lack of response from the WHHA. … They thought us just sitting there, letting it happen, wasn’t fulfilling the mission established by Jackie Kennedy.”
This story was drawn from interviews with 19 current and former association staff members and donors, as well as White House officials, historians and others who have dealt with the organization. Most agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, saying they were concerned about running afoul of the wealthy and influential leaders who make up the association’s board.
Dispute over the association’s role
Two weeks after Trump tore down the East Wing, top association donors convened for a biennial gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Several pressed McLaurin and other leaders on whether anything Trump could do would provoke a response from the association, according to three people with knowledge of the event.
The donors were told that the WHHA did not plan to speak up, the people said.
“Association leaders explained that the organization does not have authority to stop changes to the White House or its grounds,” a spokesperson wrote in an email in response to questions about those discussions.
Experts in historic preservation law have suggested the association could have legal standing to challenge Trump’s changes to the White House, if it were inclined to fight him in court, as other groups, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, have tried to do.
The association’s leaders have said that is not their job.
“Our nonpartisan responsibility is to preserve a reliable record and explain it in context across the long succession of presidencies,” McLaurin wrote last week on LinkedIn. He also announced in now-deleted social media posts that the association would hold a “special black-tie evening” to celebrate the group’s 65th anniversary on Thursday night.
Rather than criticize Trump, the association has courted him — relying on him to host fundraising dinners after prior presidents did not — even as McLaurin and other leaders have privately conceded that many of Trump’s changes to the White House are inappropriate, according to two of the people who spoke with The Post. The association’s leaders concluded that a direct fight with Trump could irrevocably damage the organization, the people said.
Trump has cast the association as an ally in his work to remake the White House. The president last year took the White House press corps across the street to the association’s flagship tourist attraction, an interactive visitor center dubbed the People’s House, and purchased books and other items from its gift shop. Trump made the association’s deluxe blue guidebooks, which carry a $250 list price, a fixture on his Oval Office desk this year.
Trump has also touted his donation of part of his salary to the organization and tied it to his renovations.
“I‘m the only president that donated his salary,” Trump said at an event last month. “And you know what I donated it to here? To fixing the White House.”
Thank you for visiting @peopleshousedc Mr. President. https://t.co/8ZqwpxvYei
— 𝕊𝕥𝕖𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝔻. 𝕄𝕔𝕃𝕒𝕦𝕣𝕚𝕟 (@WHhistoryPres) August 22, 2025
The association, which helps fund acquisition of White House furnishings and items, has tried to maintain good relations with presidencies of both parties. High-profile officials tied to both Democrats and Republicans have rotated through the group’s leadership ranks. The association has drawn prominent supporters such as Harlan Crow, a conservative who lent statues that populate Trump’s makeover of the Rose Garden, and David Rubenstein, a philanthropist Trump removed from the Kennedy Center’s board.
But former WHHA staff and donors reject the current leadership’s stance and say that Trump’s dramatic changes to the White House demand a response.
“Having worked there — whatever their official statements may be — they absolutely were focused on the architecture of the building itself,” said Ed Lengel, who worked for two years as a historian at the White House Historical Association. He cited talks, books and other efforts by the association to highlight the building’s physical structure.
“To retreat into ‘We’re the Presidential Trinkets Historical Association’ is just outrageous and cowardly,” he added.
Others say that it is imperative for the association to speak up about Trump’s changes, given the association’s charge as steward of the mansion.
“You create a precedent in what can and cannot be done inside this home that ultimately belongs to all Americans, not a single president,” said Kate Bennett, a communications strategist and former journalist who wrote about the association while at CNN during the Biden administration. “This is what Jackie [Kennedy] wanted to avoid.”
Past staff and White House officials who have dealt with McLaurin also said that — prior to Trump’s current term — WHHA leaders readily provided input on the White House’s agenda and the building’s appearance.
Two of those people pointed to an episode in the waning days of the Biden administration, when a new painting was hung in the White House — a piece of modern art by Carmen Herrera, the first Latina artist to be featured in the presidential collection.
McLaurin took exception to the art, contending it would have offended Jacqueline Kennedy, and said it should come down, the people said. Incoming Trump officials soon told the Biden administration: Take down the painting.
The painting was removed from the wall before former first lady Jill Biden publicly announced in February 2025 that it had been added to the White House collection.
Asked about the episode, spokespeople for the Biden and Trump White Houses declined to comment. A spokesperson for the White House Historical Association disputed The Post’s characterization but declined to offer further details.
From sleepy association to glitzy group
Jacqueline Kennedy founded the White House Historical Association in 1961 after arriving in the presidential mansion and growing frustrated with its condition. She intended the association to use private money to fund the building’s upkeep and ensure that it remained a true “People’s House,” the first lady said in remarks at the time.
In subsequent decades, the association — with its headquarters located just off Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House — cut a fairly low profile. Its biggest seller was an annual Christmas ornament; its historians churned out scholarly publications. Some of the organization’s staff had held the same job for decades.
Then in 2014 the association’s board hired McLaurin, a fundraiser who had held posts with the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and other organizations. He set about remaking the staff, expanding the group’s fundraising operation, diversifying its revenue streams and seeking media attention.
Not every move paid off. McLaurin in 2015 announced a three-year partnership with the Washington Nationals, including sponsoring some of the baseball team’s Racing Presidents mascots. The big swing turned into a financial flop, said three people familiar with the campaign, who said the promotion scarcely budged the association’s sales and led to at least hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses at a time when the association was running a deficit.
A spokesperson for the association said this week that the Nationals sponsorship was intended to boost awareness of the group and its mission.
Other moves were more successful. Former staff said McLaurin focused intensely on getting a U.S. president to host a fundraising dinner for the association — which he achieved when Trump first did so in 2017 and again in 2019. McLaurin also launched a podcast, rolled out new events and fundraising opportunities, and worked to promote the initiatives on social media.
The centerpiece of his tenure — the People’s House — opened in the fall of 2024 across the street from the White House, backed by a planned $85 million capital campaign and touted in advertising across Washington, including on city buses that drive past the White House.
The association’s revenue jumped from $12 million in fiscal year 2015, McLaurin’s first full year, to $73 million in fiscal 2024, driven by contributions for the People’s House campaign, according to publicly available financial documents. McLaurin’s compensation rose too, from about $295,000 in fiscal 2015 to $521,000 in fiscal 2024. Spending on travel, advertising and events has also swelled.
“I don’t think you can criticize his performance, personally,” said James Archer Abbott, a historian who has published with the association. “He’s done an amazing job in turning the organization back to research, scholarship and professionalism.”
McLaurin’s critics acknowledge the growth of the organization. But they say he has become overly focused on courting wealthy and influential individuals — and raising his own profile — rather than on Kennedy’s original mission to preserve and educate Americans about White House history.
McLaurin in recent years has regularly traveled overseas to meet with foreign officials and historians, which he and the association characterized as necessary to share the history of the White House abroad, and cultivated pet projects. Former and current staff and donors pointed to how McLaurin oversaw the development of an official Scottish tartan for the association and tartan-themed scarves, shawls, ties, mugs, plates, figurines and related items that the association now sells in its store. The people said that although Scottish masons helped build the White House, McLaurin — who sits on the board of the National Trust for Scotland Foundation USA — has disproportionately prioritized the masons given his personal interest in the subject.
Meanwhile, the association retained media strategist Tammy Haddad and the communications firm FleishmanHillard to help create and promote McLaurin’s podcast, with former staff saying that the association has spent more than $100,000 per year on those efforts.
Former staff also said McLaurin routinely communicates in blunt, unfiltered remarks and emails, some of which were obtained by The Post.
After the association hosted a 2019 workshop for teachers, billed as an opportunity “to enhance your social studies classroom,” McLaurin vented to staff about the lack of attention for the event from philanthropists, officials and reporters, specifically mentioning a prominent philanthropist and Michelle Obama’s former chief of staff.
“Did Jean Case see and hear what we did this week? Did Tina Tchen? Did Mrs. Trump or Mrs. Obama? Did members of the White House press corps?” McLaurin wrote in an email obtained by The Post. “Sure, some teacher from Idaho’s sister in law saw [it] on Facebook but who cares.”
Former staff also described McLaurin’s personal treatment of subordinates as difficult, leaving some in tears and contributing to frequent staff turnover. Several said they had heard McLaurin question why certain female employees needed to take maternity leave; others said they had heard McLaurin mock employees’ intelligence or question their weight, looks and other aspects of their appearance.
The association issued a financial settlement to at least one former staffer who said they had been disparaged by McLaurin, according to two people familiar with the situation.
The association said it could not comment on personnel matters.
McLaurin, meanwhile, has remained visible — convening events and posting podcasts and essays where he discusses the White House — but studiously avoids mentioning Trump.
When a federal review panel, packed with Trump appointees, on Feb. 19 approved the proposed ballroom, the White House Historical Association and its CEO did not weigh in. Instead, McLaurin touted his week-long trip to London, where he met with officials at Windsor Castle, the Westminster Abbey Institute and other organizations in what he and his association say were efforts to educate the world about the White House.
“My travel to London advanced meaningful partnerships that will further the Association’s continued education and sharing of White House history,” McLaurin wrote Feb. 20 on LinkedIn.
Patterson, who is working with the association on an effort to promote the nation’s founding documents, said change to the White House is inevitable.
“If they want to rebuild the East Wing, they can do it at a later date. They’ll have everything they need to rebuild it,” Patterson said last week. “I’m saying that as a joke, as a humorous thing,” he added, “because nobody’s going to want back what was there.”
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