page_title: Family Dining Room
section_title: 1902 Roosevelt redesign
hierarchical_section_title: Family Dining Room / 1902 Roosevelt redesign
caption_attribution_description: English: 1907 postcard image of the Family Dining Room at the White House as deisgned by Charles Follen McKim. Source: Collection of Jim Hood.
context_page_description: The Family Dining Room is a dining room located on the State Floor of the White House, the official residence of the President of the United States. The room is used for smaller, more private meals than those served in the State Dining Room. Used in the 1800s as a space for the First Family to have their meals, the Family Dining Room was used less for family meals and more for working lunches and small dinners in the 20th and 21st centuries.
context_section_description: The White House was extensively renovated in 1902, during which the Stair Hall and its staircase were demolished and the State Dining Room expanded northward. Renovations by architect Charles Follen McKim during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt architecturally transformed the Family Dining Room. Using White House architect James Hoban's groin vaulted ground floor hall ceilings as a model, McKim installed a similar groin vault ceiling. The surface was articulated with a low relief plaster meander (Greek key) and five-pointed star decoration, and an eagle within a laurel wreath on the east wall above the mantel. McKim commissioned the Boston furniture manufacturer A. H. Davenport and Company to build a somewhat overscaled Federal-style sideboard, china cabinet, and dining table. Reproduction Chippendale-style sidechairs replaced the series of Victorian chairs used in the nineteenth century. The style combined both Jacobean and Chippendale styles. McKim also ordered a new mahogany console table based on Anthony Quervelle's 1829 console table (made for the East Room, but since about 1860 having stood in the Family Dining Room), and a new mirror.
  To light the room, McKim hired Edward F. Caldwell & Co. of New York to design a new chandelier and wall sconces for the room. The chandelier design was copied from 18th-century English and French chandeliers, and cut glass was used for the chandelier and wall sconces.
caption: The Family Dining Room during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt.
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