First Lady Helps White House Tell Its Story

Hillary Rodham Clinton, who soon will vault from the White House to the U.S. Senate, says farewell to her life as first lady in a new book that is a gilt-edged tribute to White House history, glamour and her own personal style.

“An Invitation to the White House: At Home With History”--with Mrs. Clinton’s sales proceeds assigned to the White House Historical Assn.--makes a case for the first lady as a keeper of tradition.

It shows her as interior decorator, arts patron, presidential hostess, entertainment impresario, menu overseer and temporary custodian of a national treasure, the most visited residence of a chief of state in the world.

Quite a contrast to Hillary Clinton’s usual public image as an aggressive influence on national policy and, more recently, indefatigable campaigner.

The closest this book comes to policy debate is a description of the intense inner-circle deliberations on picking exactly the right shade of deep-sapphire blue for the Blue Room’s new look.

“I remember how vibrant this new blue color looked when I first walked into the room,” she writes. “But, as White House historian Bill Seale and I looked around, something was still not quite right.”

The fool-the-eye wallpaper swag draped at ceiling level needed to look, well, more like drapery, she decided.

“So I suggested taking a small sample of the wallpaper and cutting a moon-shaped sliver out of it,” she says. “It worked. We did the same thing around the entire border which provided the finishing touch.”

There was more: New red carpets for the cross hall and the grand staircase, a renovated State Dining Room, the acquisition of a painting by Henry Tanner, the first black painter to be represented in the White House collection; and an oil by Georgia O’Keeffe, the first woman.

The first lady also instigated the installation of eight exhibitions of outdoor modern sculpture in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, near the southeast corner of the mansion.

Throughout the book, lavishly illustrated by White House photographers, Clinton conveys a sense of the history of a house that this year celebrates its 200th anniversary as a symbol of continuity amid constant change.

“Wherever we looked there was something--a clock, a chandelier, a painting, a chair--that told a story about the people and events that have shaped our country’s history,” she writes as she describes her first days at the White House.

“In the hallways we saw presidents and First Ladies peering down from their official portraits. Outside our bedroom windows we saw the grand Magnolia planted by Andrew Jackson, which blooms magnificently in the spring.”

She emphasizes the good memories while acknowledging that there were bad times and that “we weathered investigations and impeachment.”

The White House remains a house, and houses require maintenance and repair.

“Early in the administration Bill and I would wake up every morning not to an alarm clock, but to the sounds of workers on scaffolding outside our windows,” she writes.

A team of masons was busy repairing the original sandstone walls after they had been stripped of some 40 layers of paint.

Elsewhere she gives a minute-by-minute description of the planning and precise execution of a state dinner, this one for Czech President Vaclav Havel.

And she gives credit to many White House staff members who helped make it happen, including Chief Usher Gary Walters, house manager and chef Walter Scheib, and pastry chef Roland Mesnier.

Scheib and Mesnier make their own contribution to the book with an 84-page selection of White House recipes, all of them appetizers, entrees and desserts served at State Dinners and other White House functions over the last eight years.

Included are Scheib’s Grilled Bison Filet with Spring Vegetables, Crimini Mushroom Saute and Cabernet Sauce, served at a 1990 dinner for NATO heads of state, and Mesnier’s Mocha Cake, a favorite of the first lady.

“Invitation to the White House” is published by Simon & Schuster at $35. Simon & Schuster Web site: https://www.simonsays.com