West Bedroom

The "Blue Bedroom"

Two bedrooms on the north side of the second floor are part of small suites with their own bathrooms. The west bedroom connects to the Closet Hall to the east as well as to the small Beauty Salon to the west. This room was used once as a bedroom by Willie Lincoln. Here, Mary Lincoln lay in shock following her husband's assassination, refusing to enter their own suite.

It was later occupied by President Andrew Johnson and son Andrew Jr., Robert and Charlie Taft, Joseph Lash (friend of Eleanor Roosevelt), Reathel Odum (secretary to Bess Truman), John F. Kennedy Jr., Chuck and Lynda Johnson Robb and their daughter. It was Amy Carter's play room. Later it became the Reagans' gym, but the first Bush family changed it back to a guest bedroom.

Mrs. Hoover wrote of her experience with the room:

To the other bedrooms kept for guests, little was done, except to the "Blue Bedroom" as that room on the north side of the long corridor and the west of the little hall has been called for many years. It has most often been a bedroom for family school children, it happens. It was Robert Lincoln's and Nellie Grant's, Mollie Garfield's, and probably little Nellie Arthur's, and the two young Roosevelt boys'. Mrs. Taft first assigned it to the housekeeper, who had from her day to Mrs. Coolidge's no other place to take. In 1929, however, the top floor suite in the northwest corner had just been made available; the busy lady moved up, and Mrs. Hoover had a bedroom on her hands to furnish.

Fortunately, she had also a bedroom to unfurnish. The Roosevelt period set from the late large southeast bedroom, banished out of a President's study, came to the Blue Room, enormous fourposter and all. The only needed additions were bright Chinese rugs to supplement the blue carpet.