Roosevelt Room
The Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House during the administration of Bill Clinton.
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| Building | West Wing, White House |
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| Location | Washington, D.C. |
| Country | USA |
| Coordinates | 38°53′51″N 77°02′15″W / 38.8974°N 77.0376°WCoordinates: 38°53′51″N 77°02′15″W / 38.8974°N 77.0376°W |
| Named For | Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt |
| Purpose | Meeting room |
The Roosevelt Room is a meeting room in the West Wing of the White House, the official home and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located almost in the center of the West Wing, near the Oval Office, the room is named for two related U.S. presidents: Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The two arguably contributed more than any other presidents to the design and construction of the West Wing.
Theodore Roosevelt hired architect Charles Follen McKim to reorganize the layout and use of the White House. This included constructing the West Wing in 1902 and moving executive offices out of the central White House. The original structure, some of which is still extant in the present West Wing, was originally intended to be temporary. With some modifications by William Howard Taft the West Wing remained largely unchanged until a fire on December 24, 1929 during the administration of Herbert Hoover. Because of the recent stock market crash, Hoover chose only to repair rather than expand. In 1933, early in the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, the president began a series of meetings with staff architect Eric Gugler to enlarge and modify the West Wing. Roosevelt moved Taft's Oval Office, centered on the south side of the wing, to its present location in the southeast corner adjacent to the Rose Garden. This made moving to and from the Executive Residence to the Oval Office quicker, and allowed for more privacy, a concern in concealing FDR's paralysis.
The present Roosevelt Room is located where Theodore Roosevelt's first West Wing office was. When FDR reconstructed the West Wing he used the present room for staff meetings and larger meetings with members of Congress. Franklin Roosevelt kept an aquarium and hung several mounted fish in the room, and the room became "the fish room." President Kennedy continued the fish name and hung a large mounted sail fish on the wall. In 1969 President Nixon gave the room its present name, the Roosevelt Room, to honor Theodore Roosevelt who first built the West Wing, and FDR who expanded it.
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