Magnificent Trio, The South Lawn of The White House

Magnificent Trio
South Lawn of The White House
 

Magnificent Trio, The South Lawn of The White House  
By Dave Watson

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Hand Signed & Numbered Limited Museum Edition of only 750
 

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Limited Edition of 750, Hand Signed & Numbered - Framed
 

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The South Lawn at the White House in Washington, DC, is located directly south of the mansion, and is bordered on the east by East Executive Drive and the Treasury Building, and on the west by West Executive Drive and the Old Executive Office Building, and along its curved southern perimeter by South Executive Drive and a large circular public lawn called The Ellipse. The South Lawn presents a long north-south vista from the mansion to The Ellipse, on past the National Mall, across the Tidal Basin to the Jefferson Memorial. Open to the public until the Second World War, it is now a closed part of the White House grounds that provides a setting for official events like the State Arrival Ceremony as well as informal gatherings including the annual White House Egg Rolling Contest and staff barbecues. Marine One, the presidential helicopter departs from and lands on the South Lawn. When the White House was first occupied in 1800 the site of the South Lawn was an open meadow gradually descending to a large marsh, the Tiber Creek, and Potomac River beyond. Thomas Jefferson completed grading of the South Lawn, building up mounds on either side of a central lawn. Jefferson, working with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe located a triumphal arch as a main entry point to the grounds, just southeast of the White House . Pierre-Charles L'Enfant's 1793 plan of the city of Washington, indicates a setting of terraced formal gardens descending to Tiber Creek. Later in 1850, landscape designer Andrew Jackson Davis attempted to soften the geometry of the L'Enfant plan, incorporating a semicircular southern boundary and meandering paths . Andrew Jackson Davis's changes included enlarging the South Lawn, creating a large circular lawn he termed the "Parade or President's Park" and borderd by densely planted shrubs and trees . During the administration of Ulysses S. Grant the marsh to the south was drained, and the South Lawn received additional grading and 8 to 10 feet of fill to make the descent to the Potomac more gradual . During the first administrations of Rutherford B. Hayes and Grover Cleveland the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were engaged to reconfigure the South Lawn, reducing the size of Downing's circular parade, and creating the current boundaries much as they presently are . Theodore Roosevelt who had engaged the architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White to reconfigure and rebuild part so the White House in 1902, was influenced to remove the complex of Victorian era glass houses built up the West Colonnade and the site of the present West Wing. In 1934, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt 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 punctuated with generous sight lines of the house from north and south . Tall fescue is the grass on the South Lawn. Trees on the South Lawn include the earliest remaining trees on the grounds to have been planted by a United States president – President Andrew Jackson's southern magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) on either side of the South portico, Japanese Threadleaf maple (Acer palmatum dissectum), American Elm (Ulmus americana), White Oak (Quercus alba), White Saucer Magnolia (Magnolia × soulangeana), Atlas Cedar (Cedrus atlantica), Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum), and Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra) . The South Lawn pool and fountain is planted seasonally with borders of tulips edged by grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum) for spring, red geranium (Pelargonium) and Dusty Miller (Senecio cineraria) in summer, and chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium) in fall . The two ceremonial gardens of the White House (the Rose Garden and the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden) face the South Lawn. The grounds also include an outdoor swimming pool, putting green, tennis court, and children's garden. At various times, it has included a basketball court and horseshoe pit. It also provides space for Marine One to land within just a few dozen feet of both the Executive Mansion and the Oval Office. For aesthetic reasons, the lawn does not contain a full helipad, but rather three removable aluminum discs which accommodate the helicopter's individual landing gear.

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