The East Wing’s dramatic transformation under Donald Trump’s presidency — including historic change to the First Lady’s office

The White House as we knew it, literally and figuratively, is no more.

Construction for Donald Trump‘s 90,000-square-foot ballroom at the White House is moving forward at breakneck speed, erected in place of the historic East Wing, which the president had demolished in the fall of 2025.

What has been destroyed pertains acutely to the role of the first lady, as it has long housed the offices of the President’s wife. The East Wing has been a witness to — and the site of — the transformation the role underwent from presidential spouses being quiet, domestic hostesses into high-profile public leaders in their own right, with their own initiatives.

Historians, preservationists, and former staffers of the People’s House alike were quick to decry the demolition of the East Wing to make way for the ballroom, arguing that important American history was being buried in the rubble. 

The demolished structure was mourned across the political aisle, with Stephanie Grisham, a White House press secretary and chief of staff to Melania Trump during her husband’s first term, telling the New York Times it “was such a breath of fresh air” compared to the West Wing, adding: “I hate to see that kind of history literally being demolished in front of our eyes.”

The Office of the First Lady

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt is famously the first to have professionalized the position during her husband’s administration, and it was from the East Wing that she expanded her role, using it for both hosting official functions and as a base of operations for her activism. 

Having been a fierce advocate for a myriad of civil rights issues, she used her role as first lady as an active platform for social reform and political activism; she also became the first presidential spouse to hold regular press conferences, and to speak at a national political convention. Her first news conference, on March 6, 1933, featured 35 reporters, all of them women, and during her tenure, she held nearly 350 pressers, elevating the role of women in national and political life. 

However, it wasn’t until the 1970s, when Rosalynn Carter was first lady, that the East Wing became the Office of the First Lady, a personal, working office. Before her, while first ladies like Roosevelt had established a staff and presence in the East Wing, they typically had offices in the presidential residence, often in their bedrooms. Carter meanwhile hired a chief of staff with a rank and salary equal to that of other White House staff, in addition to a team of 18 employees covering the press, research, and other special projects.

Having a space in the White House legitimized the role of the First Lady as a profession, and the East Wing office became an acknowledgement of the significant role presidential spouses play on key initiatives. It was from the East Wing that Laura Bush launched her literacy campaigns, which her daughter Jenna Bush Hager continues to honor today, Michelle Obama oversaw her “Let’s Move” program, and Jill Biden continued her work in education and with military families.

Melania also has her own first lady initiative, her “Be Best” campaign, launched in 2018 and expanded during Trump’s second term, which focuses on the well-being of children, combating cyberbullying, and tech-sector learning. However, she visited the East Wing so infrequently during her husband’s first term, as has been extensively reported, that her empty office there was converted into a gift-wrapping room.

HELLO! understands that Melania worked every day with her team that was based in and operating daily out of the East Wing prior to its demolition. Since then, the Office of the First Lady has relocated to the ground level of the Executive Mansion, where her staff is working out of the China Room, the Vermeil Room, the Library and the South Mezzanine. 

In addition to working in the White House proper, the Office of the First Lady has a footprint in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where the White House Visitors Office, which falls under the First Lady’s umbrella, works.

The East Wing became a symbol of the transformation the role of first lady underwent. It is perhaps further symbolic that as Melania has pulled back from her public role and spent less time in the White House, the office of the first lady, and the building that housed it, has come down.

“Watching the demolition is the physical embodiment of watching the First Lady’s role become smaller and smaller,” Kate Andersen Brower, author of First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies, previously told CNN.

The origins of the East Wing

The East Wing stood for 123 years, serving as an entrance for millions visiting the White House for official tours, the main gateway and first impression of the People’s House, and as the site of offices for every first lady for nearly a half century. 

It was the first impression of the White House for countless famous figures, from movie stars to Nobel Prize winners, and past presidents traditionally made sure its beauty and history was exalted, prioritizing the guest experience through it. 

The East Wing stood from 1902, when the Theodore Roosevelt administration built it as an entryway for guests arriving in carriages, until Trump, who dismissed it as a “very small building,” demolished it in 2025. The demolition included the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden and the East Colonnade, which connected the East Wing to the White House and included the president’s theater.

Prior to the construction of the East Wing and West Wing (also built in 1902), Thomas Jefferson had added the original East and West Terraces in the early 1800s, which featured covered walkways that connected the main residence to service buildings and framed the mansion’s gardens.

It was rebuilt in the 1940s during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration as a two-story wing in the same neoclassical style as the White House, in part to cover the newly built underground bunker he had constructed. Coincidentally, the then-president also faced controversy, in this case in building the East Wing. 

According to the White House Historical Association, “Congressional Republicans labeled the expenditure as wasteful, with some accusing Roosevelt of using the project to bolster his presidency’s image. The “secretive nature of the construction, tied to military purposes” further fueled suspicions, and its timing, wartime, didn’t help either.

The Supreme Court’s decision and the future of the East Wing

On Monday, August 31, 2026, the Supreme Court argued that preservationists who challenged the construction of the ballroom did not have legal grounds known as standing to bring their lawsuit because they were not directly harmed by the project. The president, who has construction workers working 20 hours a day, seven days a week, seems likely to be able to complete construction.

The order reversed previous lower-court rulings that would have halted aboveground construction, because those judges had found that the administration had exceeded its authority by moving ahead with major changes to the White House campus without congressional approval.

In a surprising dissent that quoted both Theodore Roosevelt, who built the first iteration of the East Wing, and Winston Churchill, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the White House is “an iconic American building whose symbolism and history are wrapped up in its architecture” therefore, “all the more reason to ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House.”

He added the construction was probably illegal because of Congress’ authority over buildings on public land in Washington.

Donald Trump’s ballroom plans

Trump first announced plans to build a White House ballroom in July 2025, arguing that the East Room, the White House’s largest interior event space, was too small, and that the large tents set up on the South Lawn for larger state dinners were unbecoming for a president. He now also argues that not building the ballroom would be a national security risk.

When he first announced his plans, he claimed the $250 million it would cost would be funded by private donors, and then White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said “nothing will be torn down.” 

The East Wing was demolished in the fall, and in June, the administration transferred about $350 million in taxpayer money from the Secret Service for “security enhancements” to the ballroom and bunker, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) that is being renovated and expanded underneath.