President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the planned White House ballroom will be the same “height and scale” as the existing mansion, signaling his ambitious plans for the project despite concerns from a federal judge, members of two review panels and historic preservationists that it will be too large and will spoil the historic property.
The planned 90,000-square-foot addition, which Trump has said is necessary to host VIP events, represents the most significant change to the White House complex in decades. In a Truth Social post Tuesday, he defended its appearance and size.
“It is totally in keeping with our historic White House,” he wrote. “This beautiful building will be, when complete … The Greatest of its kind ever built!”
In the roughly 130-word post, Trump also unveiled an architect’s rendering of the building: a towering neoclassical structure adorned with Ionic columns and an imposing pediment — the triangular structure above the portico — whose apex, according to Trump, matches the main mansion’s North Portico. The rendering was prepared by Shalom Baranes Associates, the firm handling the project, according to the White House.
Trump’s announcement came as construction crews continued their work on the underground infrastructure needed to support a building of that size — and as opponents awaited a decision from U.S. District Judge Richard Leon on whether to order that work to stop.
The president’s administration is also in the middle of a nine-week push to win approval for the project from two federal review committees. The goal is a green light by early March and a start to aboveground construction as early as April.
“This space will serve our Country well for, hopefully, Centuries into the future!” Trump wrote.
With historic preservationists saying they’re worried the 90,000-square-foot structure will overshadow the iconic main mansion, Leon and members of the two committees have asked whether the administration can reduce the building’s size.
Asked about Trump’s post, the White House referred to past comments made by Shalom Baranes, the project’s lead architect, who said last month that the two buildings’ heights would “match exactly.”
Baranes has also said that the ballroom’s design was intended to maintain “the visual primacy of the White House.”
“Particularly important is that the building’s primary facade on Pennsylvania Avenue is set back approximately 10 and a half feet from the White House’s primary north facade on the avenue,” Baranes said at a meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts in January.
In October, Trump ordered the demolition of the East Wing to clear space for his planned ballroom, drawing criticism from Democrats, watchdog groups and some conservatives who argued the administration should have sought public input before altering a building long known as the “People’s House.” Work has also started on the project’s underground components, with workers, heavy equipment and a tower crane on-site. Administration officials say the work is needed to ensure the president’s security.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit charged by Congress with safeguarding historic buildings, sued the Trump administration in December, arguing it failed to conduct legally required reviews or obtain congressional approval for the project. The nonprofit has asked Leon to halt construction until those reviews are completed, contending that each day of work further entrenches the project.
The Justice Department has argued that Trump has broad authority to alter White House grounds. It also submitted testimony from an engineer working on the ballroom building who said the project could still accommodate substantial design changes. The National Trust countered with testimony from architect William Bates, a former president of the American Institute of Architects, who said in a sworn statement that underground infrastructure largely dictates what can be built above it.
“Altering these conditions after the fact would require major demolition and redesign,” Bates wrote in December.
Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, seemed skeptical of the administration’s arguments last month in court. During the hearing, the judge pressed Justice Department lawyers to explain how Trump could legally fund the project with hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations. Publicly identified donors — including Amazon, Google and Lockheed Martin — collectively hold billions of dollars in federal contracts before the administration. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
The Justice Department on Tuesday said in court filings that it is prepared to immediately appeal if Leon orders a halt to the project.
Meanwhile, the two federal committees charged with reviewing the ballroom — the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts — are now led by Trump appointees after the president removed members installed during the Biden administration. White House officials have said they want to secure approvals by March, and the panels’ leaders have indicated support for the project.
Rodney Mims Cook Jr., a Trump appointee who chairs the fine arts commission, said at a meeting last month that the panel’s role was to “take care of what the president wants us to do.” But even Cook expressed concerns about the project’s scope, repeatedly pressing the architect on whether the ballroom’s “immense” pediment could be reduced.
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