Washington
Memo
An Oval
Office Replica Opens, Without Trump’s Gilded Flourishes
The White
House Historical Association recently unveiled its replica of President Trump’s
Oval Office, but it mirrors the office from his first term, before he festooned
it with gold.
Andrew
Trunsky
By Andrew
Trunsky
Reporting
from Washington
Aug. 4,
2025
Gaps have
held the attention of Washington, D.C., for decades.
During
the Cold War, there was the missile gap, based on the false premise that the
Soviet Union was outpacing the United States in amassing nuclear weapons.
Economists have long argued about the wage gap, and pollsters have spent untold
hours dissecting the gender gap after last year’s election.
The
newest gap that has appeared in the nation’s capital, however, has to do with
gold.
The gilt
gap separates President Trump’s Oval Office, which he has adorned with gold
details and tchotchkes since taking office in January, and a newly redesigned
life-size replica of it that lies just across the street at the White House
Historical Association’s People’s House exhibit.
The
association has been around since 1961, but the immersive Oval Office tour
opened just last fall, with the goal of being an exact replica of the most
famous room in the country. Until the Trump transformation was unveiled late
last month, visitors who came had seen a room looking almost identical to the
one occupied by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
But the
gilt gap renders the newer replica far from exact.
“We are
replicating President Trump’s complete tenure within the Oval Office,” said
Luke Boorady, the exhibit’s managing director, “starting with his first-term
décor.”
Ann
Compton, the chair of the association’s advisory council, said the decision to
go back in time was purely logistical.
“You
can’t go and buy anything that’s in there right now,” Ms. Compton said. “You
have to have it made.”
“They
just couldn’t make it all in time,” she added.
Mr.
Trump, a real estate developer with strong — and heavily gilded — views about
interior design, has been fiddling more with the White House complex in his
second term. He paved over the Rose Garden and made it into a Mar-a-Lago-like
patio after lamenting that women’s heels would “go right through the grass.” In
June, he oversaw the construction of two 88-foot flag poles that straddle the
White House. And last week, he announced his latest project: a
90,000-square-foot ballroom estimated to cost $200 million.
But the
Oval Office replica is a throwback to his first term. It is strikingly similar
to how Mr. Trump had the room set up back then, with many of the objects 3-D
printed to mimic the real thing. The books on each shelf are the same and sit
in the same position. The portraits, though printed instead of painted, appear
identical. So does the Reagan-era beige rug and Frederic Remington’s “Bronco
Buster” statuette (which Mr. Biden removed).
“We used
a lot of the same vendors that do work at the White House,” Mr. Boorady said,
citing the people who installed the floors and upholstered the furniture. (Mr.
Trump’s sofas were first used by President George W. Bush.) “In fact, when they
came, they noted, ‘Hey, you’re off a half-inch here, a quarter-inch off here.’”
Of
course, not everything can be exactly the same. The Resolute Desk has only one
phone instead of two, because visitors kept tangling the lines. Unlike the real
Oval Office, there is no bust of Abraham Lincoln, as it would block the
exhibit’s accessible entrance.
On
Saturday, parents stood in line as tired children sprawled out on couches meant
to mimic those where top officials sit in the real Oval Office. Many visitors
were thrilled at the opportunity to sit behind the Resolute Desk and make an
imaginary phone call to a world leader. One woman enthusiastically endorsed the
feature on the presidential desk known as the Diet Coke button, musing about
one day getting her own that would instead summon gin and tonics.
And some
said they wished Mr. Trump had never veered from the first-term version.
“I think
this one’s nice,” said Hunter McElroy, a 25-year-old property tax assessor from
Morgantown, W.Va. “I think this is a little more classier, with a little bit
less gold.”
Hoang Vo,
a software engineer visiting from Dallas with his family, had toured the White
House earlier in the day but had not gotten a chance to visit the real Oval
Office, so he was mesmerized by the chance to experience something similar in
person.
“It’s
cool and very unique,” Mr. Vo, 55, said of the replica.
Others,
however, were not convinced.
“I don’t
like it,” said Maria de los Angeles Sapriza, 63, who was visiting from Uruguay.
“I think it’s a little bit fake.” Her eyes widened when she learned about the
additional gilt brought in by the president, reportedly with the help of his
Mar-a-Lago “gold guy.”
The gilt
gap will vanish next year, when the association plans to transform the replica
to mirror the current décor of the Oval Office.
Staff and
visitors alike said they were excited to see the exhibit match the Oval Office
in its current form. But that may be a daunting task given Mr. Trump’s addition
of the many golden objects, onlays and other detailing. The White House, Ms.
Compton said, was helping with the transformation, but “it keeps changing,” she
said. “They keep adding things.”
“We have
to go out and find our own people to make the things not on the shelf,” she
added.
But Mr.
Boorady said gilding up the replica would be no problem.
“I don’t
think the lift is going to be that different,” he said. “It’s just more
objects.”
In due
time, he said, someone would be on a ladder adding gold ornaments to the
ceiling, and the gold trophies adorning the mantle would be no different from
the ones across the street at the White House.
“We want
visitors to be able to feel the White House, experience it, understand its long
history and the important things that have happened,” Mr. Boorady said.
And as
for the behemoth of a ballroom Mr. Trump is promising to build, the association
has not yet begun contemplating a replica.
“We
haven’t really thought about that,” Mr. Boorady said.
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