White House Vegetable Garden heirloom seeds and 10 different herbs such as anise hyssop and Thai basil. Former presidents' favorite produce were also sown, such as President Thomas Jefferson’s preferred vegetables, “Brown Dutch and Tennis Ball lettuce, Prickly Seed spinach and Savoy cabbage” but beets were not grown because President Obama did not like them. Along with the vegetable garden, a beehive was added near the chef’s kitchen that is overseen by Charlie Brandts, a beekeeper and White House carpenter. Honey collected from the beehives has been used to brew White House Honey Ale. The contributing gardeners responsible for the early stages of the
Edward Bok became a major force in promoting the "bungalow", a style of residence which derived from India. Plans for these houses cost as little as a dollar, and the -story dwelling, some as small as 800 square feet, soon became a dominant form of new domestic architecture in the country. Some architects complained that by making building plans available on a mass basis, Bok was usurping their prerogatives, and some, such as Stanford White openly discouraged him – although White would later come around, writing I believe that Edward Bok has more completely influenced American domestic architecture for the better than