Rehabilitating the Texas White House

The Texas White House. National Park Service.

The Texas White House, home of the 36th president, Lyndon B. Johnson, First Lady Lady Bird Johnson and their family, is being rehabilitated with money from the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA). The project, estimated at about $14.2 million, tackles maintenance and repairs, structural problems, code deficiencies and the deterioration of historic features in the house, the nearby communications buildings and the grounds around them.

The house

As a boy, Lyndon Johnson knew the place as "the big house on the river," the home of his Uncle Clarence and Aunt Frank Martin. He took ownership from his widowed aunt in 1951, and for nearly 20 years the growing house and the LBJ Ranch around it were a center of political activity. Johnson spent a quarter of his presidency leading the country from here, and the world came to know it as the Texas White House.

He was the first president with the technology to govern from a home so far from Washington, D.C. Cabinet meetings, press conferences and major decisions all happened on its front lawn. The house and ranch also gave him a quiet refuge during the turbulent 1960s and a way to reconnect with his Hill Country roots.

President Johnson died in 1973 and Mrs. Johnson in 2007, and the house opened to the public in August 2008. But it had been built over generations as a family home, and parts of it are more than a century old. It was never meant to handle the hundreds of thousands of visitors who came through it during the ten years it was open, from 2008 to 2018.

The work

The project is meant to secure the house and its surroundings for future generations by:

• repairing the building envelopes;
• replacing outdated electrical, mechanical, HVAC and alarm systems;
• stabilizing the foundation and fixing structural problems throughout;
• removing hazardous materials;
• replacing and rehabilitating aging site utilities and drainage so the site can handle expected visitor numbers and withstand extreme weather;
• improving accessibility and fire exits across the site;
• stabilizing the historic aides' and communications trailers and the switchboard building.

The Texas White House living room, with protective sheeting in place. NPS photo by Douglas Smith.

When the house reopens, visitors will again tour the first-floor rooms. Most are being restored and furnished to look as they did during the presidential years, while the master bedroom suites will keep their appearance from the times of President and Mrs. Johnson's deaths.

Timeline

All dates and costs are estimates and may change. Until the work is done, the Texas White House complex, the home and its surroundings, stays closed. The park offers a virtual tour of the house in the meantime.

Sources

• National Park Service, Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, "Texas White House in Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park to be Rehabilitated through GAOA Funding." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/gaoa-texas-white-house-rehabilitation.htm
• National Park Service, Great American Outdoors Act: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/infrastructure/gaoa.htm
• The Park Service's page dates Johnson's presidential years as both 1963–1969 and 1963–1968, so this page gives neither span.