“Treat it as your own only while it is given to you, as travelers treat an inn.” — Epictetus, Enchiridion, XI
On October 20, 2025, demolition crews began tearing down the White House East Wing, the 1902 addition that had housed the East Garden Room, the Family Theater, and generations of First Ladies’ offices. (NPR) It was coming down to make room for a 90,000-square-foot state ballroom, which the White House said in July 2025 would cost about $200 million, fully covered by Trump himself and other “patriot donors,” at no cost to taxpayers. (PBS) By December the estimate had climbed to $400 million. This week, CNBC reported the figure has reached roughly $900 million, and that it will now be “covered primarily by taxpayers.” (CNBC)
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued, arguing the demolition and construction skipped the reviews and congressional approval that changes to the White House complex require. (CBS News) On March 31, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon agreed, ordering construction stopped. His reasoning was blunt: “The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” He carved out one exception, letting work continue below ground, on the secure bunker beneath the site, for reasons of safety. (Spectrum News) On August 7, the D.C. Circuit upheld him, 2 to 1: “Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help.” Judge Neomi Rao dissented, writing that the National Trust lacked standing and that the President likely had authority to alter the Executive Residence on his own. (NPR) On August 14, the administration asked the Supreme Court for an emergency stay, arguing the project is now “beyond the point of no return.” (ABC News)
Epictetus built an entire practice around one distinction: the things that are ours, and the things that are only lent to us for a while. A body, a reputation, an office, a house, even other people, all of it is on loan, to be used well and handed back without complaint when the time comes. His image for this is an inn. A traveler uses the room for the night. He doesn’t renovate it, doesn’t sell off the furniture, doesn’t tell the next guest what shape the room will take. He uses it as what it is: someone else’s, held briefly, in trust. Judge Leon reached for almost the identical image without, as far as I can tell, meaning to invoke a two-thousand-year-old Stoic text: steward, not owner. Use it well. Don’t tear down the walls to suit your own taste and call it a gift to the guests who come after you.
What strikes me most isn’t the demolition itself, or even the ballroom. Presidents have altered the White House before; Truman gutted and rebuilt the interior down to the studs in the early 1950s, with congressional funding and public accounting the whole way through. What strikes me is the arithmetic. A project sold to the public as a private gift, something that would cost the country nothing, has grown fourfold in thirteen months and quietly become a taxpayer’s bill. That’s not just a legal question about who owns the White House. It’s a question about what happens when a steward starts treating the distinction between “mine” and “held in trust” as a matter of convenience, adjustable whenever the real cost comes due.
The Practice
Think of something you’re currently a steward of rather than an owner of: a role at work you’ll eventually hand off, a home you’re raising kids in but don’t get to keep forever, an organization, a reputation you’re building on someone else’s foundation. This week, do one thing that only makes sense if you take the “steward, not owner” distinction seriously, something you’d do even though it doesn’t benefit you personally, because the thing was never fully yours to begin with.
See you next Saturday. — Phil
Sourced from NPR’s reporting on the East Wing demolition and the D.C. Circuit’s August 7, 2026 ruling, PBS’s reporting on the ballroom’s cost estimates, CBS News’s coverage of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s lawsuit, Spectrum News’s coverage of Judge Richard Leon’s March 31, 2026 injunction, CNBC’s reporting on the Supreme Court appeal and current cost estimate, and ABC News’s reporting on the administration’s emergency stay request.