Trump hides North Portico with giant photorealistic tarp as sweeping White House revamp continues

WASHINGTON, DC: President Donald Trump’s White House has draped its iconic North Portico in a massive photorealistic tarp, concealing restoration work while making the covered entrance appear almost untouched.

The unusual cover comes as Trump continues reshaping the centuries-old presidential residence to his liking. This time, the makeover has reached what has long served as the White House’s front entrance.

White House tarp masks North Portico work

Workers on a large scaffold spent hours Thursday carefully draping the tarp over the executive residence’s North Portico ahead of renovation work, following a longstanding practice of shielding White House construction from public view, the Independent reported Thursday, July 9.

But the covering is “far from an ordinary construction sheet. It was pre-printed with a highly accurate rendering of the architectural feature behind it, creating the impression to a casual observer that no tarp was there at all,” the report said.

A White House official told the Independent that the covering is intended to shield the portico while it undergoes “standard restoration work.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said during an appearance on former DOGE spokeswoman Katie Miller’s podcast that the project would wrap “very quickly.”

“President Trump comes out to greet a world leader, sees door dings in the pillars, and he says, ‘Look at all this stuff that needs to be repaired,’” Burgum said.

“We’re restoring the plaster, and not just at the door level — all the way up to the crowns of those towers,” he continued, describing the project as “historic renovation work.”

Trump says columns were in very bad shape

Trump offered his own account of the work during a media availability earlier this week, saying crews had already “taken about 150 years of paint off of the columns and re-did them.”

The president claimed the columns had been “in very bad shape” because they were “treated very badly by a lot of presidents,” though he offered no evidence to support that assertion.

The North Portico work extends “Trump’s broader push to remake parts of the White House, but exactly how far the changes will go at the iconic entrance remains unclear,” the report stated.

Earlier this year, Rodney Cook, a Trump ally who heads the federal arts commission responsible for approving major construction projects in Washington, teased replacing the simple Doric columns that have fronted the White House for two centuries with more ornate Corinthian ones.

Corinthian columns remain an open question

The proposed Corinthian columns would resemble those used at the US Capitol and Supreme Court buildings and would also match columns planned for Trump’s ballroom, should it be completed, the report said.

“Corinthian is the highest order [of column], and that’s what our other two branches of government have,” Cook told the Washington Post.

“Why the White House didn’t originally use them, at least on the north front, which is considered the front door, is beyond me,” he added.

It remains “unclear whether the current restoration includes replacing the centuries-old Doric tops with Corinthian ones,” the report said.