Melania Trump presses importance of White House stewardship as her husband upends the historic grounds

By Betsy Klein, CNN

(CNN) — As her husband was out of town Wednesday night, first lady Melania Trump addressed a group of historians and preservation-minded VIPs in President Donald Trump’s newly renovated White House Rose Garden, where she spoke about being a good steward of the people’s house.

“The White House stands as an architectural autobiography of America,” the first lady told the attendees of the White House Historical Association’s annual presidential sites summit, according to a copy of her prepared remarks shared by her office.

The guests, sipping white wine to the smooth jazz of a military band, stood atop white stone pavers that have replaced a once grassy patch — a Mar-a-Lago-inspired change from the president that upended the first lady’s own meticulous renovations from the first Trump term.

To the guests’ right, the West Colonnade had been reimagined as a “Presidential Walk of Fame” with Trumpian flourish, including digs at the president’s perceived political enemies. And to their left was a massive presidential seal erected in granite marking the new helipad landing zone. Behind them, cranes towered over the construction site of the quickly rising and sprawling ballroom.

“As stewards of the places shaped by those before us, we are tasked with making decisions that honor future generations. It is our duty to ensure that the choices we make today are worthy of the legacy we pass forward,” Trump said, with her husband’s renovations — many of which are publicly unpopular — in the background.

The first lady has not weighed in publicly on the updates her husband, who is in Dallas for his party’s midterm convention, has made to the White House, and she did not explicitly do so on Wednesday night.

But the dramatically altered backdrop for this event underscored the sweeping changes Donald Trump has made — often at expense to historic spaces — and the relative silence with which it’s been met by both his wife and the organization tasked with preserving its history.

“She is staking out her own reputation, and there was no even attempt to defend her husband. The silence was deafening,” said one attendee, granted anonymity to speak freely.

During the remarks portion of the reception, none of the speakers referenced the president’s architectural changes, though attendees talked amongst themselves about his walk of fame and other projects, according to multiple attendees.

In her husband’s first term, Melania Trump was an active steward of White House preservation.

She helped oversee the restoration of the Bellangé suite of furniture in the Blue Room. She replaced the rug in the Diplomatic Reception Room. She was involved in a 2020 redesign of the White House Rose Garden — an effort to improve drainage and audio-visual equipment that drew criticism at the time. And shortly after the 2020 election, she unveiled a new White House tennis pavilion, which subsequently won multiple architectural awards.

Yet the first lady has declined to comment on her husband’s many construction projects, including the Rose Garden renovation and the ballroom, though Donald Trump has repeatedly indicated she’s annoyed with the constant grind of construction.

“It makes me happy when I hear those pile drivers. My wife doesn’t love it, but I love the sound,” the president told reporters in March.

Melania Trump on Wednesday described her effort to restore historic wallpaper from the French artist Jean-Julien Deltil as “a commitment to preserving a vital piece of our American narrative” that was “not merely an act of restoration; it was an investment in the future of our nation’s story.”

She touted her efforts to work alongside key federal agencies and commissions — the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission — when she oversaw the White House tennis pavilion in 2018. That’s a contrast with how the second Trump administration has blown past regulatory processes, with the ballroom construction especially.

“Every detail was thoughtfully considered to ensure the new structure harmonized with the historic neoclassical character of the White House Grounds,” she said of the tennis pavilion.

Barbara Perry, a professor of governance at University of Virginia’s Miller Center who was in attendance, compared Trump’s comments on Wednesday and her work in the first term to former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who founded the White House Historical Association.

“I thought she sounded very much like Mrs. Kennedy when she was speaking in those terms,” Perry said, adding, “I thought that Mrs. Trump was making a very clear case that she was following guidelines and maybe even laws or norms.”

Donald Trump, by contrast, oversaw the demolition of the East Wing, which housed first ladies and their staff for decades, last October. With it went the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, a space honoring the former first lady’s stewardship of the White House. Trump sidestepped approval from Congress and stacked the NCPC and CFA with loyalists.

The 90,000-square-foot ballroom project was challenged in court by a key preservationist group. The Supreme Court weighed in last week, allowing the construction to continue, even as Chief Justice John Roberts suggested the project was “likely unlawful.”

Privately, some members of the nonprofit and nonpartisan White House Historical Association are displeased with the ballroom project, according to one source familiar with the dynamic. But the organization has declined to wade into the legal or public relations battle, despite its stated mission to “(preserve) and (share) the history of the White House.”

The WHHA did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Its president, Stewart McLaurin, has broadly cast Trump’s construction projects as part of a natural evolution of the home.

“Each change [to the White House], whether Jackson’s North Portico, Arthur’s opulent redecoration, or Clinton’s security measures—has sparked debate, reflecting tensions between preservation and modernization, aesthetics and functionality, and openness and security,” McLaurin wrote in a June 2025 essay.

He continued: “Media and Congressional criticisms have often focused on costs, historical integrity, and timing, yet many of these alterations have become integral to the identity of the White House.”

Wednesday’s Rose Garden event was part of a two-day conference — attended by representatives from some of the nation’s presidential libraries and historic sites — that was not expected to touch on the Trump administration, but instead focus on the country’s 250th anniversary and sharing ideas for partnerships, philanthropy and incorporating technology into teaching history.

This story has been updated with additional information.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.