Actually, while the White House did have indoor plumbing in 1860, it would not have been marble. Not even close. It would likely have looked something like this:
According to historical receipts from the palace stonemasons, the 3 meter wide and 1 meter deep bath, “la vasque royale”, would have cost the modern day equivalent of $235,000. The entire bathroom, over $5 million.
Commissioned by Louis XIV in 1674, it was first installed in the storied “apartment of the baths”, a space covered in the rarest marble, outfitted with intricately carved basins, gold statues; an obscene show of wealth.
The king was crazy about the odeur de Nerolie, a floral essence produced from the blossom of the bitter orange tree, first introduced as a fashionable fragrance in the 17th century by an Italian princess, who was using it to perfume her gloves and bath. But Louis took it a step further by replacing his bath water entirely with the most delicate of fragrances. While Europe was trying to rid itself of the plague, bathing in natural water was considered a great risk. Paddling around in a pool of perfume was not only guaranteed to have him smelling like an orange blossom for his next appearance at court, but it was also just a safe bet in the dark ages of medicine.
Nearly nine months after Trump became chair of the center andmore than a month into its main season, ticket sales for the Kennedy Center’s three largest performance venues are the worst they’ve been in years, according to a Washington Post analysis of ticketing data from dozens of recent shows as well as past seasons. Tens of thousands of seats have been left empty.
Since early September, 43 percent of tickets remained unsold for the typical production. That means that, at most, 57 percent of tickets were sold for the typical production — and some tickets may have been “comps,” which are given away, often to staff members or the press. That compares with 93 percent sold or comped in fall 2024 and 80 percent in fall 2023.
