President Donald Trump’s proposal to coat the gray granite exterior of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in white paint would cost taxpayers at least $7.5 million, a White House official overseeing the project told the National Capital Planning Commission on Thursday. The commission, which reviews federal construction in the capital region, declined to approve the plan and instead directed the White House to supply more information before the review proceeds.
Ryan Erb, the construction operations and facilities manager in the White House Office of Administration, presented two options to the commission at its monthly meeting: painting the entire granite exterior white, or painting most of the building while leaving the granite base unpainted. Painting the entire building is the administration’s preferred alternative, officials have said.
The $7.5 million figure is a preliminary estimate for the exterior paint job alone, Erb said, and would be drawn from funds already designated for maintenance and upkeep. An outside vendor is testing a silicate paint on granite samples obtained from a Maine quarry, but Erb stressed that the samples are new stone — not the aged granite of the Eisenhower building, which was completed in 1888 after seventeen years of construction. “The initial data was encouraging for this process,” Erb told the commissioners, while adding that “unfortunately, we can’t rush that process. We’re trying to get all the data first.”
Trump has said the building’s current gray is a “really bad color,” and the painting proposal is part of a larger White House push to reshape the look of the capital. The administration is razing the White House’s East Wing to construct a 1,000-person ballroom, and Lafayette Park across the street is closed for renovations that include restoring its fountains. “President Trump continues to beautify the White House and our Nation’s Capital and is giving it the glory it deserves — something everyone should celebrate,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement after the meeting.
But the paint plan ran into forceful opposition from preservationists, architects, and historians who argued that granite is not meant to be painted. Priya Jain, representing the Society of Architectural Historians, told the commission that “painting the granite facade of the building white will adversely and permanently alter this important landmark, and should be rejected.” She was one of eleven people who commented at Thursday’s meeting, most of whom urged the commission to reject the proposal.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation said in a statement that the “subtle and rich colors” of the Eisenhower building’s granite exterior are “central to its historic significance” and that the White House plan would fail to protect those character-defining features. The nonprofit organization has previously sued the administration over the White House ballroom project.
More than 2,000 public comments submitted to the planning commission and posted on its website were also strongly opposed to the paint job. Commenters called the projected cost a waste of taxpayer money, warned that a white Eisenhower building would disrupt the visual balance along Pennsylvania Avenue, and suggested improvements such as upgraded landscaping and lighting as alternatives to painting.
The commission, which is chaired by top Trump White House aide Will Scharf, approved a set of staff comments on the proposal. Those comments require White House officials to present additional information at a future date — including specifics about the type of paint to be used and a list of alternatives that could improve the building’s appearance without applying paint to the granite. A second federal body, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, is also reviewing the proposal and has asked the White House for further information, including about paint testing, before it votes.
A lawsuit challenging the proposed paint job is pending in federal court. The Eisenhower Executive Office Building, a National Historic Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places, sits across a driveway from the White House and houses staff offices for the Executive Office of the President.