By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s glitzier. And there’s way more gold.
The People’s House museum exhibit has overhauled its replica Oval Office for visitors to experience President Donald Trump’s second-term design choices.
Gleaming vases, golden-hued swirling onlays, two dozen portraits in heavy gilded frames and knickknacks crowding nearly every available surface: the same rococo flourishes that Trump has installed in the world’s most famous workspace have been recreated down to each wall appliqué in a museum just up Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.
“As political as the Oval Office is, it really is also the office of the American people,” said Luke Boorady, managing director of The People’s House: A White House Experience. “And we want visitors who come here to feel more connected to this space.”
Public tours of the White House do not include the West Wing. So the White House Historical Association set about recreating the Oval Office, opening the exhibit in September 2024. It is the same size as the real one, and visitors often marvel at how small it feels.
A team of specialized designers has been making over the exhibit, visiting Trump’s Oval Office while the Republican president was away. Experts in North Carolina worked to recreate Trump’s many wall appliqués, while one from Indianapolis handled 3D scanning and printing of other specialized objects. California frame-makers did carving by hand for the gold frames of Trump’s chosen 24 portraits, and teams from Canada and Virginia worked on replicas of vases and other tabletop pieces, Boorady said.
There are also two mirrors and a copy of the Declaration of Independence, just like in Trump’s actual office.
The president has molded the White House in his own image
A real estate developer before he became a politician, Trump has revamped the White House to his extravagant tastes as part of his push to leave his mark on the nation’s capital while he is still in office.
When asked by Time magazine last week what he would miss most about the White House after he leaves, Trump said, “This beautiful room that nobody should be allowed to rip down. The Oval Office.” He said he had asked his chief of staff to make his altered office “a federal landmark.”
In addition to filling the Oval Office with bling, Trump paved over the lawn near the Rose Garden to build a patio space reminiscent of the one at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. He installed a row of presidential portraits along the colonnade between the White House residence and the West Wing.
He erected towering flagpoles on the North and South lawns, renovated the Palm Room and the bathroom that is part of the famous Lincoln Bedroom and ordered restoration work of the North Portico’s front columns.
But Trump seems proudest of the $400 million ballroom that he is building after ordering that the East Wing be demolished. “It relaxes me, actually,” the president said about the ballroom project during an unrelated event last week.
Trump’s sense of ownership of the White House is now such that while recently defending his attempt to ban CNN, MS Now and Politico from its grounds, the president had a momentary slip of the tongue. “I don’t have to let them into my — into the people’s house,” he said.
A replica of Trump’s first term Oval Office gets a makeover
When the White House Historical Association first opened its Oval Office duplicate, it mirrored Democratic President Joe Biden’s design. After the 2024 election, the association updated the exhibit to match Trump’s first-term style.
Last week, a crew of 25 people worked from early Monday through late Friday to get the second-term transformation ready, making the finishing touches on Saturday.
Boorady said Biden was the first president to hang double layers of portraits over the Oval Office fireplace. Trump has expanded that all around the room, stacking the walls with portraits including those of George Washington, Andrew Jackson and Benjamin Franklin.
In the real Oval Office, the colors are made more brilliant by using gilded gold leaf. In the replica, crews used a paint solution. Boorady said they did not use gold leaf to protect against chipping or other wear-and-tear from visitors moving through the area.
Trump was once spotted using superglue to try to affix gold ornaments to the Oval Office fireplace, according to Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan in their book “Regime Change.”
But no superglue was needed in the replica office. Crews used laser levels and temporary adhesive to fix items to the walls, checking their work for accuracy against renderings of the actual office before nailing many adornments to the walls.
It’s not all new flair with Trump
There are many things in Trump’s Oval Office that have stood the test of time: a beige-patterned rug from the Ronald Reagan era, gold draperies from Bill Clinton’s tenure, and couches and chairs from the George W. Bush White House.
Of course there is a copy of the Resolute Desk. Visitors to the People’s House are allowed to sit in the chairs and behind the replicated desk, which Trump and most presidents have used since it was gifted to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880.
The White House Historical Association declined to say how much remaking the replica Oval Office cost. The organization, created in 1961 by first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, receives no government funding, and raises money through private donations and sales of retail merchandise.
Trump briefly stopped by its gift shop during an unannounced visit to the People’s House in August 2025. Asked whether Trump would come for a personal peek at his newly replicated workspace, Boorady replied, “I don’t know” before adding that he is “always welcome.”