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The Blue Room, located on the State
Floor between the Green and Red Rooms, is the center of three
oval-shaped rooms.
The Diplomatic Room is located directly
below, and the President's Yellow Oval Study, or sitting room,
is on the second floor directly above.
The Oval Office is the fourth of the
Oval-shaped rooms.
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The White House
- The Blue Room
First decorated in blue at the request of President Van Buren
in 1837,
the oval Blue Room originally served as the main reception room
for the White House.
The grandest of all events took place
here when Grover Cleveland wed
Frances Folsom in a ceremony on June 2, 1886.
At age 21, she became, and still remains,
the youngest woman to be First Lady.
The wedding is the only marriage of
a president in the White House proper.
Presidents' John Tyler and Woodrow Wilson were married while
in office,
but not in the White House.
The Blue Room is decorated in the French Empire Style dating
back to the
reign of Napoleon.
The original furniture was purchased by James Monroe in 1817.
The Blue Room was last refurbished
in 1995 during the Reagan presidency.
When electric lamps were first installed
at the White House during the Polk
presidency in 1845, Mrs. Polk insisted the Blue Room remain untouched.
At the first reception after the installation,
a power outage caused the mansion to go dark whereupon guests
huddled into the Blue Room still lighted from the candles on
the chandelier.
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