The White House has been John Zweifel’s obsession.
Not getting elected president and moving there. But building it. And decorating it. And redecorating it. In miniature.
Zweifel’s White House is a 10-ton, 60-by-20-foot model that he has been working on for nearly 40 years and has cost him nearly $1 million. It is on display at North Pier, where it will remain during the Democratic National Convention and through Sept. 8.
It is accurate down to the way the curtains curl, the rugs are stitched and the books are arranged on the president’s desk (“Truman,” by David McCullough, is on there now).
The grain-size light bulbs strung on the chandeliers light up, the fireplaces flicker, the smell of roses wafts from the Rose Garden, and you can even watch “Seinfeld” on the quarter-size TVs (the screens are the lenses of hidden video cameras).
“I have people say I’m crazy all the time,” Zweifel, 59, says.
Working on the White House has been a family affair. His wife, Jan, helps. His six children, the youngest now 20, have been helping since they were small, and over the years he has the help of hundreds of volunteer artisans who carve furniture, stitch rugs and design curtains because they share Zweifel’s passion for the project.
“It’s never been a hobby,” he says. “It’s a piece of art; it’s a labor of love.”
When he was a boy in Evanston, building miniatures was his way of bringing his grandmother, who suffered from severe arthritis, to the places he had been.
Out of cardboard and crates he made miniatures of Comiskey Park, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, and scenes from shows at the Shubert Theatre.
“I had to be her eyes to the places where she couldn’t go,” Zweifel explains.
A long quest
The idea for the White House project came when he was 15 and doing research at the Chicago Public Library on Abraham Lincoln’s bedroom.
Zweifel dabbled in the project, using books and photographs to make sketches, and eventually finished his first White House out of cardboard and crates.
But he wanted more. So Zweifel began writing letters to the president asking for access to all the rooms. Again and again he received letters from the White House politely turning him down for security reasons.
Then in 1961 an aide to Jacqueline Kennedy gave Zweifel a walking tour of the White House, and permission to measure and photograph certain rooms.
It was President Gerald Ford who finally allowed Zweifel full access to all the rooms for research and blueprints.
Seeking perfection
Zweifel, who studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has financed his dream by doing commissioned projects– such as department store displays–for companies including Disney and Universal Studios.
“It’s redo, redo, redo until it’s perfect,” Zweifel repeats like a mantra. He was at the White House several weeks ago taking notes on any changes in the rooms, and a few days ago he was readying the White House in Miniature for its appearance at North Pier.
“I’m not a miniaturist–I’m a sculptor and artist,” Zweifel says. “I want to create the feeling that the president called you up and said, `Visit my house and visit as long as you want.’
“The White House was an idealistic dream. Every artist’s dream is to create something that will last longer than they do.”
DETAILS, DETAILS
— The miniature White House is 60 feet by 20 feet
— It weighs 10 tons
— The scale is 1 inch to a foot
— Library contains 2,700 books, each 1 inch tall
— East Room contains three chandeliers with 55 grain-sized light bulbs
— There are 1,000 pieces of furniture carved in detail (it took the Zweifels, for instance, 160 hours to carve, sand and stain the 2-inch table in the Lincoln bedroom)
— Grass is made from dyed-green sawdust
— Leaves, made of shredded pieces of fabric and leather, are glued on individually
— Flowerpots are made from toothpaste covers and thimbles
— Tape recorders provide the sound of telephones ringing intermittently in the Oval Office
— Blue Room petite-point rug is made on imported Swiss gauze with 900 stitches to the square inch
Source: “The White House in Miniature”by Gail Buckland (1994, W.W. Norton & Company)
