A long-lost piece of White House history may have been crushed to dust after Donald Trump tore down the East Wing to make room for his flashy new ballroom, a project critics say has turned into a “designer disaster.” Former East Wing staffer Joni Stevens, 79, says she and a few coworkers secretly hid a time capsule behind a bookshelf in 1992, hoping it would one day tell a story of the people behind the scenes, not just the First Families.
Inside the 2-foot-long metal canister? A list of every president’s military aide, dating all the way back to George Washington, plus a copy of the Pentagon’s old daily paper, The Early Bird, that day’s Washington Post, the president’s schedule, and even 13 staff business cards. “As far as I know, no one else knew it was there,” Stevens said. “There were so many wonderful people who worked there and so much history that wasn’t just to do with the First Ladies.
BREAKING: areal photograph reveals Donald Trump’s new $250M “ballroom” is nearing completion. pic.twitter.com/5kAvJTa6Yy
— PaulleyTicks (@PaulleyTicks) October 24, 2025
The secret stash was hidden when Lt. Gen. Richard G. Trefrey, the assistant director of the White House Military Office at the time, built a new bookcase on the second floor. Spotting a loose wooden panel near a South Lawn window, Stevens and her colleagues decided to tuck their little time machine inside.
Stevens, who served under Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, says that even after leaving the White House, “a little bit of me stayed there… even if they couldn’t remember who had the key.” She’d always hoped someone would eventually find it, but now fears their capsule lies buried beneath Trump’s ballroom rubble, another small chapter of American history lost to the wrecking crew
🚨BREAKING: Donald Trump just casually admitted the ballroom will now cost $300 million – that’s $50 million morethan he claimed before.
He said it like it was nothing.
Meanwhile, they “can’t afford” to save health care?
Republicans have ZERO shame.
pic.twitter.com/ic7zANlPGz
— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) October 22, 2025
Ballroom Blunders: Trump’s ‘Winchester House’ of Washington
Trump’s $90,000-square-foot ballroom was meant to dazzle. Instead, insiders say it’s riddled with ridiculous design fails. According to The Daily Beast, the new East Wing addition features two windows facing each other and a stairway that literally leads to a brick wall, a layout so baffling that even architects are shaking their heads.
The bizarre “stairway to nowhere” has drawn comparisons to the Winchester Mystery House, the sprawling, haunted California mansion built by rifle heiress Sarah Winchester, famous for its stairs to nowhere, doors to nothing, and ghostly energy. Legend has it that Winchester was told by a psychic she was haunted by the spirits of those killed by her family’s guns, and that she had to keep building forever to appease them. Now, some critics are joking that Trump’s latest project might just make him the Sarah Winchester of Pennsylvania Avenue.
