When he was president, Teddy Roosevelt brought the White House with him every summer to his residence known as Sagamore Hill in Cove Neck. Not just a vacation home, Sagamore Hill was used to conduct official business, including when Roosevelt hosted diplomatic summits that helped end a war between Russia and Japan.
Roosevelt, the 25th Vice President under William McKinley and then 26th President of the United States following McKinley’s assassination, was the first officeholder to refer to the structure as “The White House,” as it had previously been known as the Executive Mansion.
Now, Long Island University has brought the D.C. White House near Roosevelt’s summer one to their Brookville campus — to a building appropriately known as the Roosevelt School — with an exhibit known as “The White House Experience.”
It’s the only White House replica in the Northeast. Other locations that provide a White House experience are the George Washington Presidential Library in Mount Vernon, the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Texas, and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in California.
The building it’s set in formerly belonged to financier E.F. Hutton. The exhibit was created in partnership with the Society of Presidential Descendants, which of course includes grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and further generations of descendants from U.S. presidents.
The exhibit includes the Oval Office, the Situation Room, the China Room, the Theodore Roosevelt Library, the First Ladies Room, and more. Additionally, it houses the Museum of Democracy, which includes hundreds of thousands of presidential artifacts and campaign memorabilia.
“You’ve never seen anyone other than the president of the United States sitting at the Oval Office desk,” Andy Person, chief of strategy and advancement at Long Island University, said. “Many people dream of being president, but never get to walk in a president’s shoes. That’s what we’re doing here at the White House experience.”
View the Press’s tour of the White House Experience here.
For information about visiting the Roosevelt School, visit this link.
