Clinton Family Values

By BONNIE ANGELO/WASHINGTON

It is accepted wisdom in Washington that each new First Family gets to put its personal imprimatur on the decor of the White House. It is also the right of every self-respecting armchair decorator to criticize the First Family's taste. The Lincolns were disparaged as spendthrifts. Rutherford Hayes' refurbishings were deemed "French-y and pretentious." Teddy Roosevelt smeared the Green Room with a polar-bear pelt, and purists reached for the smelling salts when Harry Truman built a balcony over the South Portico. Even decor queen Jackie Kennedy was sharply rebuked by the President himself when an all-too-authentic antique chair collapsed under him at the dining table.

Now it is the Clintons' turn. In refurbishing the Treaty Room and Lincoln Sitting Room on the executive mansion's second floor, the Clintons, avid history buffs, sought to replicate the style of Lincoln's era -- in retrospect, a risky choice. Mid-19th century American decor was in its, shall we say, bawdy-house phase at the time. The Victorians never met a swag or tassel they didn't like; if one patterned fabric was good, surely four would be better.

Kaki Hockersmith, the Little Rock, Arkansas, decorator who designed the new settings, was meticulously correct, meeting the principle Hillary Rodham Clinton posited to Historic Preservation magazine: "Preservation and restoration, not redecoration . . . furthering the historic mission of the house." Duly noted. But to some eyes, the strong colors and elaborate draperies seem a tad overwrought. Even an approving White House expert admits that "it takes a little time getting used to it."

Wing-chair psychiatrists who seek character traits will need a full hour to analyze the Treaty Room, which now serves as the President's home office. George Bush had it done in pale green, with much English chintz; ranks of miniature soldiers marched across the marble mantel. Clinton asked for a masculine, library-like room, and, says Hockersmith, loves the deep red simulated-leather wallpaper, massive, specially designed bookcases and his easy chair and ottoman from the Arkansas Governor's mansion. Nine major treaties -- most recently the Arafat-Rabin agreement of last September -- were signed on the circa-1867 table that serves as his desk.

The decorating divide between the Bushes and Clintons widens in the Oval Office, where Bush's muted blue haven has been transformed into what one Washington sage calls "the Redskin Room" because of its use (unwitting, one assumes) of the N.F.L. home team's burgundy and gold colors in the upholstery. The Presidential Seal all but leaps out from Clinton's deep blue carpeting.

The most controversial change (curiously, since nobody spends much time there) is in the Lincoln Sitting Room, recast from fairly boring Reagan-Bush conventionality to Victorian overload. In the family's personal rooms, the palette shifts to pleasant pastels, prompting one visitor to observe that the Bushes' patrician threadbare-and-dog- hair style had given way to a less inviting, don't-touch tidiness. Perhaps that can be remedied by time, wear and Socks.