<P> The north front is the principal façade of the White House and consists of three floors and eleven bays . The ground floor is hidden by a raised carriage ramp and parapet, thus the façade appears to be of two floors . The central three bays are behind a prostyle portico (this was a later addition to the house, built circa 1830) serving, thanks to the carriage ramp, as a porte cochere . The windows of the four bays flanking the portico, at first - floor level, have alternating pointed and segmented pediments, while at second - floor level the pediments are flat . The principal entrance at the center of the portico is surmounted by a lunette fanlight . Above the entrance is a sculpted floral festoon . The roofline is hidden by a balustraded parapet . </P> <P> The mansion's southern façade is a combination of the Palladian and neoclassical styles of architecture . It is of three floors, all visible . The ground floor is rusticated in the Palladian fashion . At the center of the façade is a neoclassical projecting bow of three bays . The bow is flanked by five bays, the windows of which, as on the north façade, have alternating segmented and pointed pediments at first - floor level . The bow has a ground floor double staircase leading to an Ionic colonnaded loggia (with the Truman Balcony at second - floor level), known as the south portico . The more modern third floor is hidden by a balustraded parapet and plays no part in the composition of the façade . </P> <P> The building was originally variously referred to as the "President's Palace", "Presidential Mansion", or "President's House". The earliest evidence of the public calling it the "White House" was recorded in 1811 . A myth emerged that during the rebuilding of the structure after the Burning of Washington, white paint was applied to mask the burn damage it had suffered, giving the building its namesake hue . The name "Executive Mansion" was used in official contexts until President Theodore Roosevelt established the formal name by having "White House--Washington" engraved on the stationery in 1901 . The current letterhead wording and arrangement "The White House" with the word "Washington" centered beneath goes back to the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt . </P> <P> Although the structure was not completed until some years after the presidency of George Washington, there is speculation that the name of the traditional residence of the President of the United States may have derived from Martha Washington's home, White House Plantation in Virginia, where the nation's first President had courted the First Lady in the mid-18th century . </P>

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