For nearly two centuries, the White House’s front entrance has been framed by a row of slender Ionic columns — one of the most recognizable images of American democracy. Now a Trump appointee wants to tear them out and replace them with something more regal.
Rodney Mims Cook Jr., the newly installed chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts, publicly proposed swapping the North Portico’s Ionic columns for the more ornate Corinthian style at a commission meeting last month, according to the Washington Post (1).
“Corinthian is the highest order [of column], and that’s what our other two branches of government have,” Cook told the Post. “Why the White House didn’t originally use them, at least on the north front, which is considered the front door, is beyond me.”
A White House spokesperson told the Post there are currently no plans to change the existing columns, and Cook says he hasn’t discussed the idea directly with the president. But the proposal didn’t come out of nowhere.
Trump has favored Corinthian columns for decades — they’re a signature feature of Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago — and he personally selected them for the White House ballroom currently under construction.
Architects and preservation experts aren’t on board. Steven Semes, a professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Notre Dame, warned the Post that switching column styles would fundamentally alter the building’s character, comparing the idea to surgically changing the length of someone’s leg and expecting them to walk normally.
Bruce Redman Becker, an architect and former fine arts commissioner removed by Trump last year, told the Post the proposal runs counter to accepted historic preservation standards.
But the column controversy is just the latest chapter in a much larger — and much more expensive — story about how Trump is physically reshaping the People’s House. And while the White House insists taxpayers aren’t paying for any of it, the full financial picture may be more complicated than the administration’s framing suggests.
The column proposal comes as Trump’s most ambitious project — a massive new White House ballroom — is still working its way through the approval process with a price tag that won’t stop climbing.
When Trump first announced the ballroom in July 2025, it was pitched as a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot event space to seat 650 guests (2). By October, it was $250 million and designed to hold 999 people (3). By December, the cost had doubled to $400 million (4). Trump has denied reports that the space would bear his name, suggesting instead “the presidential ballroom or something like that” (5).
The project required the complete demolition of the White House’s East Wing — a structure originally built as a small entryway in 1902 under Theodore Roosevelt and substantially expanded into its modern two-story form by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 (6). It had served as the First Lady’s office since 1977. The demolition happened despite earlier assurances from press secretary Karoline Leavitt that “nothing will be torn down” (7).
A federal judge rejected a preservation group’s attempt to block construction in late February, ruling that the National Trust for Historic Preservation was unlikely to succeed on the merits (8). The trust has since filed an amended complaint arguing the administration lacks statutory authority to build without congressional approval. The Commission of Fine Arts — whose entire membership was replaced by Trump appointees — approved the design unanimously, 6–0 (9). And the National Capital Planning Commission delayed its final vote to April 2 after receiving more than 35,000 public comments — the overwhelming majority of which opposed the project (10). NCPC staff have recommended approval.
Trump has repeatedly insisted the ballroom will be fully funded by private donations, and the White House released a list of 37 donors contributing through the Trust for the National Mall, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit — meaning donations are tax-deductible. Individual contribution amounts were not disclosed for most donors.
The administration has framed the project as a long-overdue upgrade that will save taxpayers the hundreds of thousands of dollars currently spent on temporary tented events on the South Lawn (11).
That said, the donor list includes several companies with significant federal business. Lockheed Martin, the nation’s largest defense contractor with roughly $54 billion in U.S. government revenue in fiscal year 2025 according to its annual filing (12), reportedly contributed more than $10 million (13). Alphabet donated $22 million — drawn from a settlement over YouTube’s suspension of Trump after Jan. 6. Other donors include Booz Allen Hamilton, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, tobacco companies Altria and Reynolds American and cryptocurrency firms Coinbase, Ripple and Tether.
Corporate philanthropy around presidential construction projects isn’t unprecedented — private donors have funded White House improvements going back decades. But the scale here is different, and ethics watchdogs have raised questions. At a March 5 NCPC hearing, Abigail Bellows of Common Cause noted that many of the corporate donors are either under federal investigation or competing for government contracts, calling the arrangement a potential conflict of interest (14).
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The “no taxpayer dollars” line covers construction. It doesn’t necessarily cover what comes after.
Congress typically appropriates only a few million dollars per year for repair and restoration of the Executive Residence. Adding a 90,000-square-foot, climate-controlled structure with floor-to-ceiling bulletproof glass to that footprint could push utility and maintenance costs higher — even with Carrier donating the initial HVAC system (15).
According to the White House’s original announcement, the Secret Service will provide “necessary security enhancements and modifications” for the new space (16). It remains unclear whether those costs fall inside or outside the $400 million budget.
Engineering News-Record, which has covered the project’s planning process in detail, has warned that privately funded federal construction can introduce downstream obligations — including expanded utility capacity, additional security staffing and long-term maintenance — that persist well beyond the original build and lack an automatic funding source (17). The Government Accountability Office has flagged similar dynamics at the Smithsonian Institution, where donor-funded museums expanded the federal campus while leaving Congress to absorb long-term operating costs.
The columns and ballroom aren’t happening in isolation. Since returning to office, Trump has been steadily remaking the White House and its grounds.
The Rose Garden — originally designed during the Kennedy administration — was bulldozed and replaced with a stone patio resembling the one at Mar-a-Lago (18). New statues of Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton were installed in the paved-over space earlier this month — though not without some confusion. The White House initially told reporters the statues depicted Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin before issuing a correction 90 minutes later (19).
The Lincoln Bathroom received a full renovation, swapping its original Art Deco green tiles for black-and-white marble. Gold accents were added throughout. A “Presidential Walk of Fame” was created in the West Wing Colonnade featuring portraits of past presidents — minus Joe Biden, whose spot was filled with a photo of an autopen (20).
Lafayette Square, the park facing the White House, is being redesigned. The administration has also floated plans for a new 33,000-square-foot underground visitor screening facility and a possible second-story addition to the West Wing colonnade to visually balance the enlarged East Wing (21).
White House communications director Steven Cheung has defended the changes, writing on X that “construction has always been a part of the evolution of the White House” and that the building “needs to be modernized” (20). Each project individually might be defended as a routine upgrade. But taken together, they amount to what architects and preservationists have called the most significant physical transformation of the White House in modern history — and one driven largely by a single president’s taste.
Whether the White House columns actually get swapped remains to be seen. The proposal is still in its earliest stages, and the White House itself says no change is planned.
But the broader pattern is worth watching. The East Wing demolition followed a similar trajectory: an idea was floated, assurances were made that nothing would be torn down, and within months the building was gone. The administration has defended each step as an improvement. Critics, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the overwhelming majority of public commenters who weighed in with the NCPC, disagree.
What’s less disputed is that the costs tied to these renovations are likely to extend well beyond the construction phase. Ongoing maintenance, expanded security infrastructure and increased utility demands don’t end when a president’s term does — and those bills will fall to future administrations and, ultimately, to taxpayers.
The NCPC’s final vote on the ballroom is scheduled for April 2. More than 35,000 people have already weighed in.
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Washington Post (1); PBS News (2); CNBC (3); The Hill (4, 15); ABC News (5); Al Jazeera (6); NPR (7); NBC News (8); U.S. News & World Report (9); Architect’s Newspaper (10); Snopes (11, 16); Lockheed Martin (12); CBS News (13); The Art Newspaper (14); Engineering News-Record (17); Fast Company (18); The Daily Beast (19); Newsweek (20); CNN (21)
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