Nov. 1 marks a pivotal milestone in American history: 225 years ago, the doors of the White House opened to welcome its first residents: President John Adams and first lady Abigail Adams.

Back then, it was not yet called the White House. It was simply the President’s House, the new official residence of the young nation’s second president. The federal government had recently moved from Philadelphia while the new capital city was being planned and built: the City of Washington in the District of Columbia.

President George Washington meticulously handpicked the site for the new presidential home and oversaw the selection of Irish-born architect James Hoban. Hoban had won the first president’s favor and a design competition with a proposal inspired by a private residence in Dublin, Leinster House, which now houses the Irish parliament. The iconic neoclassical structure drew from the architecture of ancient Greece and the Roman Republic,........

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