‘The Residence’ Offers a Peek Inside the White House—but What Really Goes Into Running the President’s Private Quarters?
“If they share one unifying quality, it is the ability to keep secrets,” wrote Kate Anderson Brower of the White House staff in her 2015 book The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House. The book is the basis for the new Netflix show of the same name, but that’s where the similarities end. Brower’s tome is a journalistic account of several generations of workers in the private living quarters of the president of the United States and his family, whereas The Residence features a neurodivergent-coded detective named Cordelia Cupp (Uzo Aduba) solving the murder of the head usher (played by Giancarlo Esposito). The murder mystery exists at the intersection of Elsbeth and Shondaland’s other White House show, Scandal, combining political intrigue with parlor-room puzzlement—and that parlor happens to be located in the most famous house in America.
As Cupp attempts to suss out potential suspects across the domestic and wider presidential staff, we’re introduced to the housekeepers, butlers, kitchen and wait staff, engineers, custodians, curators, florists, gardeners, event planners, and secret service agents who serve at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The show dramatizes what it might be like to work in the White House, but just how true to life is it, murder aside?
The White House features a labyrinthine 132 rooms across six floors and two mezzanines. The executive residence is located in the center of the building, and includes numerous State Rooms, plus the private quarters of the first family on the second floor and third floors. Prior to 1902, the president’s office was located in the residence, but Theodore Roosevelt had it moved to what is now known as the West Wing. Today, it takes around 100 full-time and 250 part-time employees to keep the residence running smoothly, including the head usher—the murder victim on the show—who is basically the chief of staff. The sheer number of workers “are there to alleviate the burdens of daily life for the first family, who generally have no time to cook, shop, or clean,” Brower writes.
