Page 14 - Christmas at the Nixon Library

The Pat Nixon White

House Gingerbread House

Beginning in 1969 ---the Nixons’ first Christmas in the White House--- Pat Nixon, working with German-born
pastry chef Hans Raffert, gave life to what is now the most treasured of White House holiday confections: the
famous gingerbread house.

Chef Raffert’s early designs always held an A-frame, elaborately embellished with cookies, candies, icing and
gumdrops. The two-foot high house was kept together with six pounds of icing, five pounds of cookies, one
pound of hard candy, and a dozen peppermint candy canes.

Altogether, the completely edible gingerbread house weighed 40 pounds, and took twelve hours to create.
One year, Chef Raffert even created miniature figures of the Nixon family dogs Pasha, Vicky and King Timahoe,
that sat outside the front door.

By 1977, the gingerbread house had become the White House’s main attraction, and was guarded during
public tours by two U.S. Marines.

The design would evolve over the decades as Chef Raffert worked to balance the increased popularity and
interest in the design with the wants and favorites of each First Family. By the 1990s, the gingerbread house
design had morphed to edible scale replicas of the White House, monuments around Washington, Santa’s
Workshop, and even a castle; the 2008 gingerbread house weighed nearly 500 pounds.