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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the First Lady

For Immediate Release July 13, 1995

WHITE HOUSE BLUE ROOM REFURBISHING COMPLETED WITH THE INSTALLATION

OF CARPET

A new oval carpet was installed in the Blue Room of the White House on July 5, 1995. The installation of the carpet completes the refurbishing of the Blue Room. The refurbishing project began in January of 1995. The wool carpet has a blue field with gold rosettes and an eight foot center medallion with classical motifs of scrolls, vines, flowers and lyres in cream, gold, red and blue. The motifs are repeated in the blue and gold border.

The design of the carpet, measuring 23.6 feet x 33.1 feet, was adapted from an original design for a neoclassical English carpet of about 1815, the period of the furnishings acquired by President James Monroe for the Blue Room. The design of the carpet is owned by Woodward Grosvenor & Co Ltd. in England. Woodward Grosvenor & Co Ltd. is represented in the United States by J.R. Burrows Company in Rockland, Massachusetts. The needlepoint weave carpet was made by the Stark Carpet Corporation and loomed in Henderson, North Carolina. The cost of the carpet was $50,500.

Renovating and refurbishing of the Blue Room began January 3 of 1995. Work done in the Blue Room included replacing the wall paper, drapes and furniture fabric, repainting the room, and the preservation and conservation of historic objects in the room.

The Blue Room is one of three oval rooms in the White House and is located on the State Floor. The room, seen by 1.2 million visitors a year, was last refurbished in 1972. The draperies and furniture upholstery had become soiled, worn and sun damaged and needed to be replaced, as did the badly worn mid-nineteenth century Chinese carpet which had been in the room since 1975.

The Blue Room renovation/refurbishing is the first major White House project funded exclusively by the White House Endowment Fund. The White House Endowment Fund was established in 1990 as a non-profit charitable organization to raise a $25 million endowment. The purpose of the endowment is to support, in perpetuity, the preservation and conservation of the public rooms of the White House, and the acquisition of objects for the White House collection of fine and decorative arts.