The North Lawn at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

, is bordered on the north by

Pennsylvania Avenue Pennsylvania Avenue is a diagonal street in Washington, D.C., and Prince George's County, Maryland, that connects the White House and the United States Capitol and then crosses the city to Maryland. In Maryland it is also Maryland Route 4 (MD 4 ...

with a wide view of the mansion, and is screened by dense plantings on the east from East Executive Drive and the Treasury Building, and on the west from West Executive Drive and the Old Executive Office Building. Because it is bordered by Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House's official street address, the North Lawn is sometimes described as the front lawn.

Description and use

A semicircular driveway runs from the northwest gate through the North Portico, sweeping back to Pennsylvania Avenue through the northeast gate. A circular pool with fountain is centered on the north portico of the White House. Visiting heads of state enter the White House grounds, and are officially welcomed here prior to a

state dinner A state banquet is an official banquet hosted by the head of state in his or her official residence for another head of state, or sometimes head of government, and other guests. Usually as part of a state visit or diplomatic conference, it is h ...

. Public tours, which begin on East Executive Drive, exit through the North Portico, and visitors exit from the northeast gate.

White House correspondent The White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) is an organization of journalists who cover the White House and the president of the United States. The WHCA was founded on February 25, 1914, by journalists in response to an unfounded rumor t ...

s often stand on the North Lawn with the North Portico as a backdrop during television news broadcasts. Up until the 1990s they would broadcast from the lawn itself, however this left a large expanse of trampled grass and mud. In the 1990s the broadcast point was moved to a new area of the lawn covered with gravel for the purpose, leading to the nickname 'Pebble Beach'. The area was later repaved in Pennsylvania fieldstone in 2003, leading to the new nickname 'Stonehenge', though the former remains somewhat more common. A reviewing stand is erected on the North Lawn facing Pennsylvania Avenue prior to the inauguration of the president. The president uses the enclosed structure to review the parade, which proceeds from the U.S. Capitol.

Design and horticulture

Pierre-Charles L'Enfant's 1793 plan of the city of Washington placed the President's House facing a convergence of radial avenues centered on the North Lawn. In 1850, landscape designer Andrew Jackson Davis attempted to soften the geometry of the L'Enfant plan. In 1848, a bronze statue of

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...

was placed in middle of the lawn by President

James K. Polk James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849. He previously was the 13th speaker of the House of Representatives (1835–1839) and ninth governor of Tennessee (183 ...

; it was replaced by a pool and "gurg" steam-driven fountain in 1871. Through the remainder of the 19th century the North Lawn was planted with increasingly complex seasonal "carpet" style flower bedding punctuated by tropical plants borrowed from the White House glass houses. President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

, who had engaged the architectural firm of

McKim, Mead, and White McKim, Mead & White was an American architectural firm that came to define architectural practice, urbanism, and the ideals of the American Renaissance in fin de siècle New York. The firm's founding partners Charles Follen McKim (1847–1909), W ...

to reconfigure and rebuild part of the White House in 1902, was induced to simplify the grounds, removing what was increasingly seen as Victorian clutter. The bedding scheme on the North Lawn was greatly simplified. Later, in 1934, President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

engaged Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. to evaluate the grounds and recommend changes. Olmsted understood the need to offer presidents and their families a modicum of privacy balancing with the requirement for public views of the White House. The Olmsted plan presented the landscape largely as seen today: retaining or planting large specimen trees and shrubs on the perimeter to create boundaries for visual privacy, but opened with generous sight lines of the house from north and south. The lawn is planted with a grass variety called tall fescue (''

Festuca arundinacea ''Festuca arundinacea'' ( syn., ''Schedonorus arundinaceus'' and ''Lolium arundinaceum'') is a species of grass commonly known as tall fescue. It is a cool-season perennial C3 species of bunchgrass native to Europe. It is an important forage g ...

).'

Specimen trees

Trees on the North lawn include fern-leaf beech ('' Fagus sylvatica, Fagus sylvatica asplenifolia''), American elm (''

Ulmus americana ''Ulmus americana'', generally known as the American elm or, less commonly, as the white elm or water elm, is a species of elm native to eastern North America, naturally occurring from Nova Scotia west to Alberta and Montana, and south to Flor ...

''), white oak (''

Quercus alba An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ...

''), white saucer magnolia (''

Magnolia × soulangeana ''Magnolia'' × ''soulangeana'' ('' Magnolia denudata'' × ''Magnolia liliiflora''), the saucer magnolia, is a hybrid flowering plant in the genus ''Magnolia'' and family Magnoliaceae. It is a deciduous tree with large, early-blooming flowers in ...

''), red maple (''

Acer rubrum ''Acer rubrum'', the red maple, also known as swamp maple, water maple, or soft maple, is one of the most common and widespread deciduous trees of eastern and central North America. The U.S. Forest Service recognizes it as the most abundant nati ...

''), American Chestnut Tree ('' Castanea dentata)'' and American and English boxwood (''

Buxus ''Buxus'' is a genus of about seventy species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South ...

species'').

Seasonal plantings

The pool is planted seasonally with borders of

tulips Tulips (''Tulipa'') are a genus of spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes (having bulbs as storage organs). The flowers are usually large, showy and brightly coloured, generally red, pink, yellow, or white (usually in warm ...

edged by grape hyacinth ('' Muscari armeniacum'') for spring, red geranium ('' Pelargonium'') and Dusty Miller ('' Senecio cineraria'') in summer, and chrysanthemum (''

Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium ''Pyrethrum'' was a genus of several Old World plants now classified as ''Chrysanthemum'' or ''Tanacetum'' which are cultivated as ornamentals for their showy flower heads. Pyrethrum continues to be used as a common name for plants formerly inclu ...

'') in fall.

References

External links