Bulldozers have begun ripping up the grass and digging the foundation for a new flagpole in the White House Rose Garden lawn, making good on President Donald Trump’s plan to install a Mar-a-Lago-style patio.
Employees with the National Park Service, which maintains the White House grounds, began work Monday on the project. They expect to finish sometime during the first half of August, the Associated Press reported.
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Trump walked over to inspect the work and told reporters he was installing two “beautiful” flagpoles “paid for by Trump” because the grounds have “needed flagpoles for 200 years,” according to the AP. The White House already flies the American flag and the POW/MIA flag on the roof every day.
The president had announced in mid-February he wanted to remove the Rose Garden lawn, which is often the site of bill-signing ceremonies, press conferences, award presentations, and formal dinners. He later explained that the reason was because women had trouble walking in the wet grass in high heels.
“The grass just, it doesn’t work,” he told Fox News during a White House tour in March. “We use it for press conferences and it doesn’t work because the people fall into the wet grass.”
The White House has two rose gardens: the Rose Garden located along the West Wing and the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden south of the East Terrace Colonnade.
Both were originally created in 1903 by former First Lady Edith Roosevelt and redesigned for the Kennedys during the early 1960s.
It was President John F. Kennedy’s idea to revitalize the Rose Garden and convert the lawn that Trump is bulldozing into a space for official events, according to Rose Garden designer Rachel Lambert Mellon.
Besides the garden’s facelift, Trump has vowed to build a $100 million ballroom in keeping with the Grand Ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Last month, a large magnolia tree that had been planted outside the Oval Office window to commemorate John F. Kennedy Jr. was cut down and replaced with a smaller tree.
First lady Melania Trump also renovated both the Rose Garden and the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden in 2020. The latter, which was more extensive, sparked an outcry and inspired petitions calling for the garden to be restored to its “former glory.”
