Trump makes over the Rose Backyard, Mar-a-Lago model : NPR

Since returning to the White Home in January, President Trump has been on a mission to renovate — together with an overhaul of the iconic Rose Backyard, the place work is sort of full.

Trump has swapped out the grass within the Rose Backyard with stone, turning what had been a garden right into a patio. And it is a patio that bears a putting resemblance to a well-liked function at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Seashore, Fla.

By Trump’s telling, eliminating the grass was a necessity, as a result of it bought too soggy for advantageous footwear.

“You see the ladies?” Trump mentioned in a February interview with The Spectator journal. “The grass was moist. Their heels are going by way of the grass, like, 4 inches deep.”

First Girl Melania Trump wears Christian Louboutin sneakers within the Rose Backyard of the White Home, Thursday, Might 7, 2020, in Washington, D.C.

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Alex Brandon/AP

Wearers of stilettos needn’t fear about sinking anymore. The $1.9 million challenge changed the garden with paving stones, laid on the diagonal. New drainage techniques put in across the perimeter are lined with white grates with a Stars and Stripes motif.

“It is a stone that is the identical coloration because the White Home itself. And since it is very white it is going to mirror the warmth. It isn’t going to be highly regarded, like if you happen to had a darkish stone,” Trump defined not too long ago.

The not too long ago renovated Rose Backyard has Presidential seals on the corners, on the White Home, Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, in Washington, DC.

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The challenge is the newest modification Trump has made to the White Home. The Oval Workplace is now totally gilded, and he has plans to construct a brand new $200 million ballroom.

The Kennedys revamped the Rose Backyard

The Rose Backyard, with the massive garden within the heart, edged by flower beds, dates again to the Kennedy administration. Earlier than that it had been extra of a fundamental backyard and fewer of an occasions area.

“President Kennedy wished an out of doors room,” mentioned Stewart McLaurin, president of the White Home Historic Affiliation. “He wished an area the place you may have outside conferences, receptions, occasions.”

President John Kennedy speaks to educators from 62 international nations assembled within the White Home rose backyard in Washington on Feb. 16, 1962. Kennedy voiced hope that America will develop ?a cult of excellence regarding schooling and mental growth.? The educators are finishing a six-month keep in the US. (AP Picture/BHR)

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President John F. Kennedy and first woman Jacqueline Kennedy labored with their good friend and famous gardener Rachel Lambert “Bunny” Mellon to revamp the backyard. That design included giant magnolia timber and dozens of rose bushes.

Over the a long time, the roses had suffered from an absence of daylight and poor drainage, in keeping with the Belief for the Nationwide Mall, a philanthropy. Solely 12 of the unique rose bushes remained in 2020 when first woman Melania Trump oversaw a serious restoration challenge meant to return it to the Kennedy/Mellon imaginative and prescient.

US President Donald Trump, left, and James Blair, White Home deputy chief of workers for legislative, political and public affairs, view renovations to the Rose Backyard of the White Home in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, July 15, 2025.

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Al Drago/Bloomberg through Getty Photos

Funded by non-public donations to the Belief, the primary woman added 200 new roses and formal boxwood parterre borders with perennial and annual plantings. Critics mentioned a brand new stone border across the edge was too stark. However because the vegetation have matured, the backyard is as soon as once more vibrant.

An area for press conferences and signing ceremonies

Over time, the Rose Backyard has hosted numerous press conferences and signing ceremonies. Throughout Trump’s first time period, it even served as a backdrop for a photograph op when Frank Giaccio, 11, set his sights on mowing the garden on the White Home, and Trump made his dream come true. The photographs went viral.

President Trump watches Frank Giaccio, 11, of Falls Church, Va., as he mows the garden within the Rose Backyard of the White Home on Sept. 15, 2017.

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Whereas the garden is now gone, the flowers aren’t going anyplace. Solely the grass was eliminated. The price of this work can be being lined by non-public donations to the Belief for the Nationwide Mall. This time, it was Trump — not the primary woman — who was the driving power.

Earlier this week, music blasted from the White Home as Trump examined out a brand new speaker system for the patio. Trump can play DJ from his iPad, identical to he does at Mar-a-Lago. The Rose Backyard additionally options patio tables with yellow-and-white striped umbrellas, an ideal match to the area at Mar-a-Lago generally known as the Seashore Membership.

McLaurin acknowledged this alteration could also be jarring. However he mentioned many adjustments on the White Home that had been controversial at first later turned considered as important options of the Individuals’s Home, together with the West Wing, the Colonnade, the North and South Porticos.

“It isn’t frozen in time,” mentioned McLaurin. “It evolves and it adjustments. And totally different presidents and first girls have totally different concepts.”

President Ronald Reagan delivers the graduation speech to the John A. Holmes Excessive College senior class from Edenton, N.C., Might 13, 1986 in Washington, D.C. within the Rose Backyard of the White Home.

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Scott Stewart/AP