Queens’ Bedroom

The Queens' Bedroom in 2008, looking northeast (Architectural Digest)

From Office to Guest Suite

The Queens' Bedroom is a bedroom on the second floor of the White House, part of a suite of rooms that includes the Queens' Sitting Room and Queens' Bath. Named for the many royal guests it has hosted (including queens of the Netherlands, Greece, Norway, and Great Britain), this room is sometimes used by presidents to reward friends and political supporters. Between 1902 and 1963, it was known as the "Rose Room" and was used by Anna Roosevelt (daughter of Theodore Roosevelt) and Emily Carow (Mrs. Roosevelt's sister), among others.
The room has been furnished in Federal style since the Truman renovation. Traditionally, the bed thought to have belonged to Andrew Jackson is used here; it was donated around 1902 and first used in what is today the Lincoln Bedroom. Off an east doorway is a small sitting room used as an office until the West Wing was built. It is furnished in Federal style to match the bedroom.

Franklin Roosevelt to Winston Churchill (code-named "Former Naval Person") inviting him to the White House just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. (NARA)

Before the 1902 renovation, it was the usual bedroom and office for presidential private secretaries, which meant many male relatives, including sons of presidents. When the president's staff was moved to the new West Wing, this room became a regular bedroom suite. When the White House was gutted and rebuilt during the Truman administration, this room was rebuilt expressly as a guest suite with its own bathroom.
This is the room where Winston Churchill stayed when he visited with Presidents Roosevelt and Truman before and after World War 2. Mamie Eisenhower felt that only queens and similar state guests should stay in the Queens' Bedroom, so she had her son John and his wife Barbara moved to another room. Jackie Kennedy considered taking the room for herself, but settled on the traditional master suite.
Adapted from America's First Families: Chapter 3, A Home Within a Symbol:

The bedroom suite now called the Queens' Suite, because several European queens stayed here, was called the Rose Suite after the 1902 renovation, and was often used by visiting relatives: Edith Roosevelt's sister Emily Carow; William Howard Taft's sister and brother-in-law, Frances and William Edwards; Coolidge's cousin's daughter Marion Pollard; Anna Roosevelt, FDR's daughter; and most "First Mothers," from Martha Truman to Virginia Clinton Kelley.
While the Kennedys' bedroom was being decorated their first weeks in the house, they lived here. Jackie Kennedy's redecoration of the connecting sitting room in blue and white has remained intact for nearly forty years. Lady Bird Johnson sometimes repaired here to work in complete privacy. It was also used for a Catholic mass on the first birthday of Luci Johnson Nugent's son Lyn, and served as a holding room for groom Chuck Robb before his White House wedding to Lynda Bird Johnson.

More Images

The Queens' Bedroom, circa 2000, looking northeast

The Queens' Bedroom in 1999, looking north (White House Historical Association)

The Queens' Bedroom in 1992, looking north (HABS)

The Queens' Bedroom in 1992, looking southwest (HABS)

The Queens' Bedroom in 1991, looking northeast (White House Historical Association)

Mrs. Ford taking a phone call around 1975, looking north (Getty Images)

The Queens' Bedroom around 1965, looking north (Corbis - Conde Nast)

The Queens' Bedroom in 1963, looking northeast (White House Historical Association)

The Queens' Bedroom in 1962, looking northeast (White House Historical Association)

The Rose Bedroom in 1960 (Kennedy Library - Robert Knudsen)

The Rose Bedroom in 1952, looking northwest
(note the addition of concealed closets on either side of the fireplace) (Truman Library)

The Queens' Bedroom in 1952, looking northeast (Truman Library)

The Rose Bedroom in 1947, looking northeast (Truman Library)

The Rose Bedroom in 1947, looking west (Truman Library)

The Rose Bedroom around 1923, looking southeast (Library of Congress - Harris & Ewing)

The Rose Bedroom around 1920, looking southeast (Library of Congress - Harris & Ewing)

Secretary (chief of staff) George Cortelyou at his desk in the McKinley White House offices in 1901
(White House Historical Association - Library of Congress)