By Olivier Acuña Barba •
Published: 31 Jul 2025 • 23:46
• 2 minutes read
A rendering of the White House State ballroom Credit: McCrery Architects PLLC/The White House Press Office
US President Donald Trump frequently expressed a desire to build a vast, luxurious ballroom in the White House. Well, his dream has come through as the president’s official residence in Washington, D.C. has announced plans to start building it for $200 million.
The new ballroom will be built right next to a “modernised” East Wing of the White House, the BBC reported on Thursday, July 31st. That area of the presidential residence currently houses First Lady Melania Trump’s offices.
Construction will begin in September and is designed to cover 90,000 square feet (27,432 square metres) of space, his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said. The ballroom at the White House is a 15-year ambition by the president to construct an event space on the White House grounds that expands the building’s entertaining capacity — but also resembles the gilded spaces of his private clubs.
‘It’ll be a great legacy project’
“I always said I was going to do something about the ballroom, because they should have one,” Trump told reporters on Thursday. “It’ll be a great legacy project, and I think it’ll be special.”
The new ballroom, which will maintain the “theme and architectural heritage” of the neoclassical executive mansion, will have a seated capacity of 650 people, more than three times the space in the East Room, currently the largest event space in the White House.
“No president knew how to build a ballroom,” Trump said last weekend, meeting the European Commission president in another of his crystal-draped ballrooms, this one at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland. “I could take this one, drop it right down there, and it would be beautiful.”
White House now hosts events in ‘unsightly’ tents
Leavitt described the new construction, which she said will be funded by Trump and other private donors, as a necessary addition after previous White Houses were forced to host significant events in temporary tents constructed on the South Lawn, which she called “unsightly.”
“For 150 years, presidents, administrations and White House staff have longed for a large event space on the White House complex that can hold substantially more guests than currently allowed,” said Leavitt. “President Trump has expressed his commitment to solving this problem on behalf of future administrations and the American people.”
An architect known for “classical architectural design,” McCrery Architects, was selected to spearhead the project.
“I am honoured that President Trump has entrusted me to help bring this beautiful and necessary renovation to The People’s House, while preserving the elegance of its classical design and historical importance,” the firm’s CEO Jim McCrery said in a statement.
