Since its redesign in 1962, the White House's Rose Garden has become almost as iconic as the couple that created it, President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline. Though the White House has changed hands numerous times since the Kennedy Administration, the Rose Garden has remained a beloved fixture on the grounds.
After taking office in 1961, President Kennedy wasted no time making the White House his home. First established in 1913 by Mrs. Ellen Wilson and located just outside the windows of the Oval Office, Kennedy envisioned the Rose Garden becoming a "traditionally American" horticultural oasis. This idea spurred the Rose Garden as it appears today.
President Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy turned to gardening legend - and family friend, notes The Washington Post - Bunny Mellon, to turn their vision into a reality. With the help of landscape architect Perry Wheeler and then White House head gardener, Irwin Williams, Mellon completed the Rose Garden in 1962.
Now, The White House Historical Association looks back at what inspired the first family to reimagine the outdoor space and its importance to them through the words and stories from Jackie O's personal "memory book."
While the Kennedy's only enjoyed the garden for a short period of time, Jackie Kennedy held the memories her family made in it close to her heart. A few years after President Kennedy's assassination, Mrs. Kennedy gave Mellon a handmade scrapbook documenting the Rose Garden's journey from conception to completion. She inscribed the album "For Bunny - who made the Rose Garden - and who brought so much happiness to all our lives."
Within the scrapbook, Kennedy goes on to tell a number of personal anecdotes and express how much the Rose Garden pleased her husband, saying it was where he spent his "happiest hours in the White House." It is the photos and memories from Mellon's personalized scrapbook that fill the White House Historical Association's exhibition, "The Kennedy Rose Garden: Traditionally American."
But the joy of the Rose Garden did not stop with the Kennedy family. President Richard Nixon's eldest daughter, Tricia, married her fiancée, Edward Cox, in the Rose Garden in 1971. Summer garden parties are held there regularly. John S. Botello, who curated the exhibition, says of the garden "It's a stage for American traditions. It's our outdoor White House"- just as the Kennedy's imagined it would be.
"The Kennedy Rose Garden: Traditionally American" runs through September 12. Visit whitehousehistory.org for more information.
