The most important house in the world

BARACK OBAMA and his family will soon move into the building that will be their home for at least the next four years. The crush of presidential responsibilities aside, Obama must be relieved that his two-year run for the White House is over, and that he can finally settle in.

The presidential campaign is often described as a run or race for the White House, rather than a run for the presidency. That's understandable because the presidency is a job described by a set of duties and obligations, and those can be fairly abstract. But that 132-room, 208-year-old building just off the Washington mall is anything but abstract. Unlike almost every other government building in Washington, the White House is not just an office, but also a home. So, while it is difficult for most Americans to identify with the pressures of the presidency, almost all can identify with the ups and down of being in a family. Americans have always been fascinated with the First Family. They have celebrated White House weddings (including one of the president himself in 1886, when Grover Cleveland married Francis Folsom), shared the joy of births, mourned the loss of wives and children, and grieved with the First Family upon the death of the president.

Residency of the White House may be only temporary, but that hasn't stopped the families that live there from making numerous changes and additions. Some, like the 1889 hiring by Benjamin Harrison of the first woman on the White House payroll, foreshadowed great social changes in the country.

Others tracked improvements in communication technology, such as the telegraph office installed by Andrew Johnson, the first telephone by Rutherford B. Hayes, the first televised address from the White House by Harry Truman, and the first presidential e-mail by Bill Clinton. First Families, just like any other, have looked to improve their lives with "modern conveniences." James Polk, inaugurated 12 years before the Civil War, had gas lights installed, Franklin Pierce put in electric heating, and William Howard Taft bought the first official White House automobiles during his 1909-1913 stay.

Eventually, though, like every other First Family, the Obamas will have to move out of the White House. And so, four or eight years from now, when their time there is over, they will then participate in one of the great symbols of our Republic: the simple act of moving out of their temporary home while another family - sometimes that of the candidate who just beat him (three out of the last nine elections) - moves in.

Despite the transient nature of its occupants and the changes they made, the White House still serves the basic purposes for which it was designed more than two centuries ago. It is a home. It is a seat of power. It is permanent. It is changing. We draw comfort from those qualities, from its very presence there on the National Mall.

On his second night in the still-incompleted mansion, its first occupant, President John Adams, wrote the following inscription, which still sits over the mantle of the White House Dining Room fireplace: "I pray Heaven to Bestow the Best of Blessings on THIS HOUSE and on All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but honest and Wise Men ever rule this roof."

America is no longer the rural land where John's wife, Abigail, hung laundry in the East Room. The people who vie for the big white house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue know that America faces complex problems and dangers unimaginable in Adams's time. They also know that much of the world still looks to the United States for leadership necessary to solve those problems. And so the White House, where President Barack Obama will live and work, may not only be the most important building in America, but the most important in the world.

David Kruh is the author, with his father, Louis Kruh, of "Presidential Landmarks."