Photo credit: Janet Donovan
“I work events here part time,” Lynn Maxi told Hollywood on the Potomac while giving us a tour of the famous Gingerbread House room at Decatur House, a stone’s throw from the White House, “and I’m the manager at the gift shop in the White House in the East Wing during the daytime. Every year they do one in the State Dining Room at the White House. The pastry chef who did this one, Chef Mesnier, was the pastry chef under five administrations. He started with Reagan and he went right up to George Bush’s administration, to the beginning of it. He made this large gingerbread house for us, for our exhibit here. You can see him in the pictures of houses that he’s done over the years. He also put out a book that’s right here behind you, on the Gingerbread House, that we sell in our gift shop here at the Decatur House.” Mesnier is considered to be a culinary genius.
Decatur House is a historic home in Washington, D.C., named after its first owner and occupant Stephen Decatur. The house is located northwest of Lafayette Square, at the southwest corner of Jackson Place and H Street. The White House Historical Association is a private, non-profit organization founded in 1961 by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy with a mission “to protect, preserve, and provide public access to the rich history of America’s Executive Mansion.” It is a fixture of the president’s neighborhood since 1818 and has been home to foreign and American dignitaries, secretaries of state, members of Congress, and a Vice President, in addition to numerous free and enslaved servants who played a pivotal role in shaping America with a nearly 200-year history. The adjoining rooms were filled with Christmas decorations, photos, marzipan ornaments and history – even a video demonstration on how to make your own gingerbread house…..should you be so inclined.
Stewart McLaurin is the President of the White House Historical Association and has served as vice president of Mount Vernon for the Fred W. Smith Library. He was executive director of the award-winning Ronald Reagan centennial celebration, he was Chief of Staff to President John DeGioia at Georgetown University, and he has held senior positions at Motion Picture Association of America, Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and the American Red Cross. Hollywood on the Potomac was his dinner partner at a small private occasion upstairs at Decatur House after the tour where he spoke about its history.
“In December of 1944, the United States Congress passed a bill that created a new flag for the Fleet Admiral of the Navy and the General of the Army; both of those flags were to have 5 stars on them. Well, that created a little bit of a problem for the President of the United States whose flag only had 4 stars,” said McLaurin. “So President Roosevelt designated a group to work on a new design for the presidential seal and the presidential flag. In April of the next year, 1945, President Roosevelt passed away and Harry Truman became President. So in August of that year the idea was presented to Harry Truman for his approval. President Truman was presented this actual flag (pointing to the flag) and the changes that have been made were not only were there four stars to the President, but there were 48 stars representing the 48 states of the United States, and the head of the eagle was turned toward the olive branches and away from the arrows. So the only changes that have been made since then were the additional two stars for Hawaii and Alaska.”
Decatur House Photo credit: Creative Commons
“Well, fast forward to October of that same year and Harry Truman is going to Brooklyn, New York to dedicate the launch of the USS Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the new aircraft carrier, and it was this actual flag that went with Truman on that trip for the very first time and we have it here for you to see tonight,” he added. “Now what does this have to do with anything? In the little blue box that’s on your table is a commemorative little tray and on that tray is the Truman seal for you as a memento to take with you tonight. So that’s a little bit of White House history.”
“Let me tell you about who we are and what we do. In 1961, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy at the ripe old age of 32 years old had the foresight and the wisdom to know that then and over time that the White House would need a private partner to provide resources for conservation, preservation, restoration and funds for the acquisition of art and furnishings for the White House Collection. So for 54 years, we’ve been privileged to be that private partnership that she established and created those 54 years ago; and over these years we have provided over 45 million dollars all in private resources back to the White House. We receive no government funding whatsoever. We have two primary missions: The one that I mentioned and then education, a very important part of our mission. We are in essence storytellers. We teach and tell the stories of the White House, it’s history, and the 43 presidents who have occupied it. We go into schools, schools come to us, we publish books; this year we will publish six books. We have an extraordinary quarterly publication called White House History. The brand new issue is on the White House and the movies with Daniel Day Lewis and Sally Field. If you’re a little more old school you can see Sophia Loren and Cary Grant, but the entire magazine is filled with a rich history of how the White House has been depicted in the movies. So every quarterly issue takes on a different topic in-depth in a scholarly way on White House history.”
“I’ll touch briefly on how we are funded: We do have a little bit of private philanthropy and we’ve been blessed to receive a fair amount of proceeds from our retail operation anchored by the White House Christmas ornament. So for 35 years, this ornament has been made for us by an American company in Rhode Island, and each year we honor a different president sequentially. This year it falls on Calvin Coolidge. So this ornament, for the very first time, does something that none of the others have – it actually lights up. Calvin Coolidge was the first president to light the National Christmas Tree; so there’s a story, and on it are 15 different icons about Calvin Coolidge’s life and the package is a little booklet that teaches and tells the story of each of those icons. So this is what we have been relying on and its a wonderful thing.”
“Finally let me tell you just a nugget of history about this wonderful historic building that we’re in. It’s almost 200 years old. This house was built by Steven Decatur with proceeds that he had received from being a hero in the war of 1812, and in those days, when you came back from war service and if you had performed valiantly you would go on tours of cities and they would give you money. So he came and built this house. At that time, it was the closest house in proximity to the White House. There was nothing between where we are right now and the White House itself. Well, Steven Decatur was a brilliant man, but not necessarily a smart man. He accepted the challenge to a duel. The night before he accepted that challenge, in these very rooms we’re tonight, he hosted the wedding party dinner for the daughter of President James Monroe – in these rooms were we are in right now. The next day he went out to Maryland and he drew the short straw on the end of that duel and was mortally wounded, came back to this house and passed away in the room below.”
“This house has been many things over the years. Mrs. Decatur could not afford to stay here very long so she made provisions for it to be rented out, and over the years Vice Presidents, Ambassadors, Members of Congress, and others have lived in this house. During the Civil War, the Union Army kept the uniforms and provisions here and used it as a center to send those provisions out to the troops. Then a family called the Beales owned this house for almost 100 years, and if you happen to notice on the floor of this room in here that we call the California room is the Great Seal of the state of California. Mr. Beale was actually the man who went to California, sent by the President of the United States, to prove that there’s gold in California. He brought back a nugget of gold, and so he kept the avenues of trade or at least started the avenues of trade in California, for business development. Then the National Trust for Historic Preservation took this over in the 1950s and we entered into a 30 year agreement to use this wonderful facility as our headquarters. And now you know about the history of Steve Decatur and the history of this wonderful historic home.”
