Weizmann House decoration over that of Mendelsohn. The house now displays the art and objects that the Weizmanns had collected. The design of the house was met with praise early on. One guest, the niece of Arthur Balfour described it as "a modern, aristocratic house, in harmony with its surroundings, well suited to its purpose, fully expressing the soul of its owners, and, like them, a national treasure." Beginning in 1949 until Chaim Weizmann's death three years later, the years Weizmann served as President of Israel, the house functioned as the official residence of the President. The house was adapted into a
Chaim Weizmann British Zionist Federation; he worked with Arthur Balfour to obtain the milestone Balfour Declaration; A founder of so-called Synthetic Zionism, Weizmann supported grass-roots colonization efforts as well as high-level diplomatic activity. He was generally associated with the centrist General Zionists and later sided with neither Labour Zionism on the left nor Revisionist Zionism on the right. In 1917, he expressed his view of Zionism in the following words, Weizmann's personality became an issue but Weizmann had an international profile unlike his colleagues or any other British Zionist. He was President of EZF Executive Council. He was also criticized by Harry