Hail to the Decor Chief

Ahead of Presidents Day, amuse friends with these decorating dictates issued by former occupants of the White House

- BY STEVE GARBARINO

IN 1961, when Jacqueline Kennedy began her famous restoration of the 160-yearold-plus White House, she also led efforts to make the neoclassical residence a museum, a designation Congress made law that year.

Before then, 33 U.S. presidents had lived there, sometimes neglectfully, other times aggressively-making over entire interiors, tossing or selling the home's contents. Herewith, some notable presidential decor moves, from hiding ashtrays to ordering gut renovations.

1 Gilded Age Potus Chester .A. Arthur (1881-1885) hired Louis Comfort Tiffany to redecorate the White House.

The pièce de résistance: a magnificent wall of stained glass separating the entrance hall from the transverse hall.

When Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) hired architecture firm McKim, Mead and White to usher in a more stately design, he reportedly asked Charles McKim, a beaux-arts proponent, what to do with the art nouveau masterpiece.

McKim answered, "I would suggest dynamite." The screen was auctioned and may have been lost in a fire.