The desk in the Vice President's Ceremonial Office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, colloquially known as the Theodore Roosevelt desk, is a large mahogany pedestal desk in the collection of the White House. It is the first of six desks that have been used by U.S. presidents in the Oval Office, and since 1961 has been the used as the desk of the U.S. Vice President.
The desk was made in 1903 to a design by Charles Follen McKim for the newly constructed West Wing (then called the Executive Office Building) and was one of several pieces of furniture made specifically for the new interior spaces. In 1929, the desk survived a major fire in the West Wing and was subsequently placed in storage for over a decade. The desk was replaced by the Hoover desk in the Oval Office until after Franklin D. Roosevelt's death, with the next two presidents, Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, returning the Theodore Roosevelt desk to the office. After briefly using this desk in the Oval Office, John F. Kennedy switched to the Resolute desk and moved the Theodore Roosevelt desk to the Vice President's Ceremonial Office. Richard Nixon used this desk in his "working office" in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where some of the Watergate tapes were recorded by microphones attached to it. After Nixon resigned, the desk was moved back to the Vice President's Ceremonial Office where it has been used by every Vice President since. Many of past users of the desk have signed their names on the bottom of the center drawer.
Design and markings
The Theodore Roosevelt desk is a mahogany pedestal desk and is owned by the White House. The high desk has a workspace which measures wide and deep. The understated design is marked by elegant and masculine lines and is detailed with brass pulls. There are two alterations to the desk that both took place during the Nixon administration. A hole was drilled in the top so phone cords could be threaded through the desk out of sight, and a lock was placed on the left hand drawer to secure a recording device located there. The desk was described in a 1949 article in Parade Magazine as being "time-worn, fire-scarred, [and] repainted".
Beginning in the 1940s, each user of the desk signed the interior of the center drawer at the end of his term in office. In 1974 it was noted in a memo that the signatures of Truman, Eisenhower, and Johnson (as well as Truman and Eisenhower's initials) were located in this drawer. Since then the drawer has been signed by vice presidents Nelson Rockefeller, Walter Mondale, George H. W. Bush, Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, and Mike Pence.
History
1902 White House renovation
In 1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States following the assassination of incumbent president William McKinley. Upon moving into the White House, the Roosevelts found the Victorian interiors crowded and dingy and generally too small for their large family. A major renovation of the White House began in 1902 to remove this Victoriana and otherwise bring the building to modern standards. Roosevelt's wife, Edith Roosevelt, worked with Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead, and White to achieve this renovation which included the construction of a new Executive Office Building, now known as the West Wing. As part of this renovation, all furniture in the White House was replaced with new pieces, including this desk. This refurnishing was done with the stated aim to "design and furnish the interior in harmony with its neoclassical exterior architecture, in order that it would not be subject to changing fashion."