A museum near the White House has rebuilt its Oval Office replica to match President Trump’s gold-heavy second-term design, complete with rococo flourishes.
Last week a crew of 25 worked from early Monday through late Friday, with finishing touches on Saturday, to transform the full-size replica at The People’s House: A White House Experience. The museum sits just up Pennsylvania Avenue from the real White House, and its Oval Office is the same size as the West Wing original.
AP News reported that the same rococo flourishes now installed in President Donald Trump’s real Oval Office have been recreated down to each wall appliqué, so visitors can walk through the space the public never sees on standard White House tours.
The West Wing stays off those public routes. Managing director Luke Boorady said the goal is connection, not politics alone.
"As political as the Oval Office is, it really is also the office of the American people," Boorady said. "And we want visitors who come here to feel more connected to this space."
Two dozen portraits now hang in heavy gilded frames. Designers copied wall appliqués, mirrors, vases, tabletop pieces, and a Declaration of Independence copy to match the current presidential look.
Specialists came from across the map. North Carolina experts handled the wall appliqués. An Indianapolis team did 3D scanning and printing. California frame-makers produced hand-carved gold frames. Crews from Canada and Virginia supplied vases and other tabletop items.
They worked while the president was away from the real Oval Office, then used laser levels and temporary adhesive before nailing pieces in place. The replica uses a paint solution instead of real gold leaf so heavy foot traffic does not wreck the finish.
The White House Historical Association runs the museum. It receives no government funding and raises money through private donations and merchandise sales. Officials declined to say how much the latest remake cost.
The association opened the Oval Office exhibit in September 2024. It first mirrored Joe Biden’s design. Biden was the first president to hang double layers of portraits over the fireplace, Boorady noted.
After the 2024 election the museum updated the room to Trump’s first-term style. The second-term overhaul followed once the real office received its new gold treatment.
First lady Jacqueline Kennedy created the White House Historical Association in 1961. The Resolute Desk on display traces to a gift given to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. Other furnishings echo Reagan-era rugs, Clinton gold draperies, and George W. Bush couches and chairs. Portraits include George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Benjamin Franklin.
Before politics, Trump built a career as a real estate developer. That eye for finish work shows up across the White House grounds.
He installed the rococo gold flourishes inside the Oval Office. He paved lawn near the Rose Garden for a patio reminiscent of Mar-a-Lago. He lined the colonnade between the residence and West Wing with presidential portraits. Towering flagpoles went up on the North and South lawns. The Palm Room and the Lincoln Bedroom bathroom received renovations. He ordered restoration of the North Portico front columns.
He also ordered the East Wing demolished for a $400 million ballroom. In a Time magazine interview last week he said of that project, "It relaxes me, actually."
Asked what he would miss most, Trump pointed straight at the office itself.
"This beautiful room that nobody should be allowed to rip down. The Oval Office."
He said he had asked his chief of staff to make the altered office “a federal landmark.” Defending an attempt to keep CNN, MS Now, and Politico off the grounds, he added, "I don’t have to let them into my, into the people’s house."
A book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan recounts an earlier moment when Trump was spotted using superglue to affix gold ornaments to the Oval Office fireplace. The attention to detail is not new.
In August 2025 Trump made an unannounced stop at the People’s House gift shop. Boorady did not know whether the president would tour the finished second-term replica. He called Trump “always welcome.”
For visitors who will never clear West Wing security, the museum now offers the next best thing: the office as it stands under the current president, gold and all.
Beauty and order in the people’s house are not frivolous. They signal that the office still belongs to the country, and that the man who works there intends to leave it looking like it matters.
