House & Garden 
same treatment in forms and color has been 
adhered to in the hall. The removal ot the 
great screen of Tiffany glass, which formerly 
stood across the intercolumnar openings 
from hall to corridor has restored to these 
members their ancient simple dignity. With 
this ill-advised and costly screen, have been 
swept away also other such anachronism and 
offences to the purity and taste of the build¬ 
ing, which had grown upon it with the years, 
and largely, I believe, in the changes of Presi¬ 
dent Grant’s time and President Arthur’s. 
With this much of the work of the 
architects, I think the public generally is 
well content, but we are not entirely recon¬ 
ciled to the President’s Office. The idea 
of putting it where it has now been placed 
was never popular ; the realization is received 
with considerable scorn. The building pre¬ 
sents itself somehow to the people as a 
monument to Congressional niggardliness. 
It is indeed as plain as a pipestafF within, 
and perhaps not without intention, having 
an advocacy on the score of unobtrusively 
doing the work it was intended to do. But, 
truth to tell, it is mostly regarded with 
regret, and, perhaps, it would be as well if 
in taking in the ensemble of the remodeled 
White House, one would cover up that part 
of the picture where the Office comes in. It 
is a low structure of one story and attic, is 
approached from the street between the 
White House and the State, War and Navy 
Building. It measures, I think, about fifty 
by a hundred feet, and is built against the 
end of the west terrace, which it overreaches 
by the height of the attic and roof. The 
material is brick, painted white. 
From the old plans and prints we may 
easily reconstitute the several stages of this 
