Inside Trump’s remake of the White House Rose Garden. First a stone patio, then statues

Trump’s transformation of the White House Rose Garden continues with the addition of statues to the newly redesigned space. FILE - A statue of Alexander Hamilton is seen in the Rose Garden at the White House, March 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — Instead of adding new roses, President Donald Trump’s White House Rose Garden is growing statues. Trump put statues of some of America’s founders in the garden just off the Oval Office after he replaced its plush lawn with a white stone patio , turning the historic outdoor space into a look-alike of the one at his Mar-a-Lago home and private club in Palm Beach, Florida. At least one statue was a gift. Others are on loan from people who wish to remain anonymous. The latest addition, a bronze depiction of a seated Thomas Jefferson signing the Declaration of Independence, was a gift from George Lundeen, a sculptor from Loveland, Colorado. It joins statues already displayed there of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Ben Franklin. A fifth sculpture named “Freedom’s Charge” is also on the patio. The statues are part of Trump’s sweeping series of White House renovations , from his gilded makeover of the Oval Office to the ballroom and helipad that the Republican president is having built on the south grounds. These projects fit into Trump’s broader plan to leave his mark on downtown Washington through other construction projects , including a statue garden on federal land near the National Mall. Lundeen said he made the sculpture of Jefferson, the third U.S. president, decades ago and kept it at his ranch until he decided to spruce it up and send it to Trump for display at the White House in time for July Fourth celebrations of America’s 250th birthday . Steven Barber, his friend and collaborator, had reached out to contacts at the White House on Lundeen’s behalf. “I thought it would just be a real nice thing on the 250th for people to look at Thomas Jefferson as he was writing the Declaration of Independence,” Lundeen said in a telephone interview. But the statue did not get to the White House in time. Barber said it was stuck on a truck partly because of heavy security around the celebratory events. Trump was shown photos and liked the sculpture so much that he decided to put it in the Rose Garden. When the president called Lundeen to thank him, he got voicemail. After the holiday, Lundeen’s office manager insisted he listen to one message in particular. “Hi, George. It’s your favorite president, Donald Trump, and I just wanted to thank you,” the president said on the recording, which Lundeen shared with The Associated Press. “The sculpture, it looks really beautiful … just by the picture I can see it’s really incredible, and we have a wonderful place right in the Rose Garden, and I appreciate it.” Barber said in a separate telephone interview that he had been calling the White House for months to discuss the statue but got little in the way of a response until about three weeks before Independence Day, when in came a “flurry of emails saying they wanted it.” Details on the other statues added to the Rose Garden are relatively sparse. The statue of Washington, America’s first president, was lent by Harlan Crow, the White House said. Representatives for the Texas-based real estate tycoon and GOP megadonor, who made headlines in recent years for his friendship with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas , did not respond to email messages from the AP seeking comment. A third statue, “Freedom’s Charge,” a 14-foot-tall (4.3-meter-tall) bronze sculpture of two Revolutionary War soldiers separated by a flag, was relocated from Dallas. Chas Fagan, the sculptor, did not respond to emailed requests for comment. The Franklin and Hamilton statues are from anonymous donors, according to the White House. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle explained Trump’s fondness for statues by saying that no other president has done more to beautify the Whi