The Little White House

Franklin D. Roosevelt came to Warm Springs in 1924 in hopes of recovering from the effects of polio. His love for the area and hopes for the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation led him to build a small white clapboard cottage on these pine scented slopes. The house was completed in 1932, while F.D.R. was serving as Governor of New York. During F.D.R.'s four elected terms as the 32nd President, the cottage became known as "The Little White House." It was designed by architect Henry Toombs, who also designed many of the Foundation buildings. The cost was $8,738 including landscaping. The cottage, garage, servants quarters and guest house are preserved much like they were on April 12, 1945 when F.D.R. died of a massive stroke as he was sitting for a portrait. The "Unfinished Portrait" and many of F.D.R.'s personal belongings can be seen in the cottage and in an adjacent museum. During the busy years between 1932 and 1945 F.D.R. only visited his beloved Little White House on 10 occasions while he and the nation struggled through the Great Depression of 1929 and then World War II. Many of the solutions to the "people problems" that beset the nation during his presidency came to F.D.R. as the results of his association with the people of this area.