To visit the actual White House, you have to contact your member of Congress at least 21 days in advance, arrive no later than 15 minutes before your start time, and…it’s not like you’re going to see the Oval Office. But starting Monday, you can cross the street to the People’s House: A White House Experience, and for the price of $0, wander around the Executive Mansion, attend Lynda Bird Johnson’s wedding to Chuck Robb, or sit behind the President’s incredibly ugly desk and pretend to make a world-shaking phone call. (“Syrup prices are down in Vermont? Fire all the missiles at Canada now!”) Photograph courtesy the White House Historical Association. Stewart McLaurin, the president of the White House Historical Association, stood in front of a 1:5 replica of the South façade Friday to welcome a bunch of gawkers from media organizations for a preview on Friday morning. The WHHA constructed the People’s House in the Mills Building across 17th Street, Northwest, from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in record time—the association announced it last November, construction began the next month, and when Washingtonian visited this summer, the drywall was still being taped and mudded. Stewart McLaurin in front of the South facade model. Photograph by Andrew Beaujon. Our next stop was a wall of more miniatures—large-dollhouse-sized replicas of some of the mansion’s rooms, where screens depict events that happened in them, like Rutherford B. Hayes’ 1876 swearing-in that took place in the Red Room. From there we moved into a room that, thanks to immersive projection technology by Panasonic, changes from the East Room to the Green Room and several other colors of room every five minutes. Hover your hand over an object on the wall and information pops up about it. The star attraction is a re-creation of the Oval Office, which will be meticulously stocked with accurate furnishings based on whoever sits in it at the time. President Biden’s Oval sports a replica of his family Bible, a moon rock, and busts of JFK and Cesar Chavez, as well as the yellow curtains that Bill Clinton installed and Donald Trump rehung after they spent most of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations in storage. It follows a re-creation of the President’s famous “45-second commute” from the residence to work, with a painted simulation of the Rose Garden on the windows to one side, and the West Colonnade on the other. “Martin Sheen was in here yesterday twirling around in the chair,” McLaurin said. “It feels smaller than the real one,” said a New York Times reporter who was on his way to the actual White House after this. (McLaurin assured him it was to scale.)     Reporters surround the Resolute Desk. Photograph by Andrew Beaujon. Just up the stairs is the “People’s Voices Gallery,” which honors some of the “people you don’t see,” as McLaurin said. You can learn about the history of the mansion’s gardeners, place a “book” on a table that allows you to flip through digital “books,” and get a photo in a booth in front of a green screen where you can choose a White House background and have it emailed to you. Photograph courtesy the White House Historical Association. Then it’s time to go to work: Visitors can sit in at a meeting in the Cabinet Room and help Abe Lincoln, FDR, or JFK decide what to do about various problems. Next door, another immersive projection allows you to crash a state dinner—the Salahis were ahead of their time in so many ways—and then you enter the tail end of the exhibit, which features a replica of the Family Theater and screens outside where you can “vote” on Presidential pets by making a $1 contribution to the White House Historical Association (Macaroni, Caroline Kennedy’s pony, was in third place for some reason). Nearby is a gallery of White House objects painted white—”to intrigue you,” McLaurin said—with all sorts of interactive features. Photograph by Andrew Beaujon. You’ll either exit through the gift shop or, if you’ve made arrangements in advance, hit the third-floor classrooms where your school or corporate group can learn about the association’s deep research into the building, like the 200 or so enslaved people it’s identified who built the actual White House 150 yards away. It’s a good reminder that, like so much of US history, there’s usually a deeper story to be told. “There’s some tough, difficult stories that we’re charged with explaining,” McLaurin said. “Every day,” he said before we left, “I learn something new about the White House.” The People’s House, 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest. The exhibition opens Monday, September 23. Reserve free timed tickets in advance here. The post First Look: The People’s House Interactive White House Experience first appeared on Washingtonian.