A Visit to Roosevelt's Little White House

One of the first things I learned about my new town, was that it was the place where President Franklin D. Roosevelt came to get treatment for his polio. This was facinating to me because when I was at Moosehorn NWR in Maine, I was able to visit Campebello Island, the site of his family's summer home and the place where he contracted polio, in 1921 at age 39. That was fascinating to me also because I had read Loving Eleanor by Susan Wittig Albert, the story of the intimate relationship of Eleanor and the journalist, Lorena Hickok (Hick) as told from their letters. They spent a lot of time on Campobella Island, especially after Roosevelt started spending most of his time away from office here in Warm Springs. I blogged about that visit with lots of pictures along the tour of the cottage here.

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I found out the Roosevelt loved to build and was actively engaged in designing his house and the cabins at his health spa he built for the rehabilation of polio victims.  He toured the countryside to get ideas for the cabin and settled on the Greek Revial Style with the combination living/dining room filling the center space.

No, this is not the Little Whitehouse, but the entrance, gift shop, and. on the left, the museum. 

To get to the house, you have to go out the back of the Visitor Center and walk a few hundred yards down the hill. Two other buildings are in front of each side  of the Little White House.  I started by visiting them first. The building on my right was the servant's quarters. Three servants  lived in the upstairs of this building which was the garage. One bedroom belonged to the cook, Daisy Bonner.  The other bedroom was shared by President Roosevelt's personal valet, Irving McDuffie, and his wife, Lizzie, who also worked as a maid, shared the second bedroom.  They shared the small living area at the top of the stairs and the one bathroom.  The bathroom didn't even a tub or shower and the servants had to go to the basement of the Little White House for a shower.

Garage and servant's quarters

One of the bedrooms

The living area

The other building is the guest house, built in 1933 and furnished with the furniture made in the Val-Kill shop at Hyde Park.  This was started by Eleanor to hire people without jobs during the depression.

The entrance to the guest house

The one guest room had twin beds

I was prepared for the simplicy of the house, but was amazed at how small it was.  It is a true cottage, with an entry, a dining/living room, kitchen, butler's pantry, three bedrooms and two baths.  The third bedroom was used by his secretary, Marguerite LeHand. Ms. Roosevelt seldom came here so her bedroom was used by other family members when they visited.

I'm standing between the two forward buildings to take this view of the Little White House

This pantry is just to the right of the entrance to the kitchen

The ice cream maker was often used since President Roosevelt loved homemade icecream

I loved the efficency of this pot lid rack on the wall next to the stove

There was a butler's pantry with several sets of dishes and lots of glassware between the kitchen and dining room.  This was my favorite set.

Ships were the theme of the Little White House Decor. Roosevelt collected them. 

I didn't retain the story on this ship 

This ship was made from scraps left over from building the house. 

The biggest part of the house was the sun deck.  Roosevelt had a dining set out here and frequently worked sitting at it

This is his bed.  He died in it April 12, 1945

The entire house was made of long leaf pine boards.  This is the front entrance

His Scottish terrior, Fala was very famous 

President Roosevelt was busy signing govermental papers and chatting with some of his cousins that were visiting him. He had commissioned Elizabeth Shoumatoff to paint his portrait and she had only been working on it for about two hours when he had his massive stroke.  The portrait was never finished and can be found in another outbuilding. Later she went on to paint another portrait from memory. The finished portrait is also on view.

The unfinished portrait

The finished portrait, painted from memory

I had skipped the museum at the beginning because the day was getting colder and I didn't have a jacket with me.  So I ended up there. I thought the museum did a great job of document both his life at Warm Springs and his personality. We could also listen to a fireside chat and get a sense of his political style. And we could see how detrmined he was to go on with his life in spite of being so crippled by polio. Finallywe could see how people loved him, especially in the scores of canes given to him.

I think someone made this for Roosevelt. I found it very beautiful but could only take part of the work. 

His 1938 Ford Convertable which was set up so he could drive it

A display of canes given to the President

I was SO looking forward to swiming in the Warm Springs this winter.  THEN I found that they are not open to the public, or even workable. Put the docent said there  are plans to reopen them in the future. But at one time, Warm Springs was the only hospital doing rehabilitation of polio victims.  And President Roosevelt through a lot of his energy into building the buildings at the site of his Georgia Warm Spring Foundation.  You have to drive about a mile to visit it.

The three pools at the Polio Center - two for therapy and the center one for the public - hopefully one day they will be open to visitors again. 

Roosevelt in his bathing suit - also on view in the museum. (photo from the internet)

This visit was a very interesting and moving experience. I came away with even more respect for one of our most important presidents.