Identifier: randmcnallycospi1903rand (find matches)
Title: Rand, McNally & Co.'s pictorial guide to Washington and environs ..
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Rand McNally and Company
Subjects:
Publisher: Chicago : Rand, McNally
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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d the Italian style. Thematerial is Virginia sandstone, the length is 170 feet, and the width 86 feet. The housestands squarely north and south, is of two stories and a basement, has a heavy balustradealong the eaves, a semicircular colonnade on the south side (facing the river and finestgrounds), and a grand portico and porte-cochere on the northern front, added in Jack-sons time. Its cost, to the present, exceeds $1,500,000. In 1814 the British set fire tothe building, but heavy rains extinguished the conflagration before it had greatly injuredthe walls. Three years later the house had been restored, and the whole was then paintedwhite, to cover the ravages of fire on its freestone walls, a color which has been keptever since, and is likely to remain as long as the old house does, not only because of thetradition, but because it is really effective among the green foliage in which the mansionis ensconced. It was reopened for the New Years Day reception of President Monroein 1818. 91
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AT THE EXECUTIVE MANSION. 93 The Presidents Grounds consist of some eighty acres sloping down to the PotomacFlats. The immediate gardens were early attended to, as is shown by the age and sizeof the noble trees; but only lately has the more distant part of the groundsbeen set in order. This part, as also the park nearer the house (locally Presidentsknown as the White Lot) is open freely to the public, under the eye of Grounds* policemen; and here, in warm weather, the Marine Band gives outdoorconcerts in the afternoon, and the people come to enjoy them. At such times fashiongathers in its carriages upon the winding roads south of the mansion, and assumes theformal parade of Rotten Row or the Bois de Boulogne. It is here, too,on the sloping terrace just behind the White House, that the children of Egg-fOlIing,the city gather on Easter Monday to roll their colored eggs — a prettycustom the origin of which has been quite forgotten. Lafayette Square ought also tobe included as practical

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