White House Basement

The Basement

The White House Basement is actually located under the North Portico. There is access to the Basement rooms by way of the north hall on the ground floor and also by doors in the two open courts on either side of the North Portico. Because of these courts, some rooms in the Basement have windows. The basement meets the north hall in the east-west Basement hall, a 9-foot-wide corridor 82 feet long.

The basement contains, among other areas, the Carpenters' Shop, Engineers' Shop, Flower Shop, and related offices. It also contains Richard Nixon's bowling alley.

The original mansion included an area under the Entrance Hall for the original kitchen and servants' rooms. In the Truman reconstruction, this space was greatly expanded. The servants' dining room was converted into a "Broadcast Room" for radio broadcasts. With great fanfare, Dwight Eisenhower made the first White House television broadcast from here in 1953, but it was clear that a windowless, vaulted basement was no place for a president to be seen, and the space was soon subdivided and used for other purposes. Today that space is the north hall of the ground floor and the Curator's Office.