Fact check: How many presidents have used the White House swimming pool?

Executive Summary

Two distinct White House pools exist in its modern history: an indoor pool installed for Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s and an outdoor pool installed for Gerald R. Ford in 1975, and multiple presidents used one or the other, but the available sources do not produce a single, definitive tally of every president who ever swam there. Contemporary reporting and historical summaries agree on the basic timeline — FDR built the indoor pool; later presidents used it until it was covered and repurposed; Ford commissioned the outdoor pool, which later occupants have used — but the sources vary in which later presidents are explicitly named as users ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}.

1. A presidential amenity that started with FDR and evolved into two pools — the historical thread everyone cites

The consistent historical narrative is that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had an indoor pool installed in the White House in the 1930s, primarily for therapeutic reasons, and that later presidents continued to use that indoor facility until it was covered to create the Press Briefing Room in 1970. Sources identify Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson as users of the indoor pool before its conversion, and they place the conversion in the Nixon era. This timeline is repeated across historical accounts and recent reporting ^{[1] [2] [4]}. The convergence of these independent accounts establishes the indoor-pool-then-press-room sequence as solid factual ground.

2. Gerald Ford’s outdoor pool created a continuing presidential swim option

After the indoor pool was converted, President Gerald R. Ford ordered the construction of an outdoor pool on the South Grounds, completed in 1975, which restored a White House swimming option for subsequent administrations. Multiple sources state Ford’s intentional installation of an outdoor pool to replace the lost indoor facility, and they identify the outdoor pool as the structure currently in use on the grounds. News pieces from 2025 reaffirm Ford’s decision as the origin of the present pool and cite it as an enduring part of presidential recreational space ^{[1] [4]}.

3. Who used the indoor pool: several mid‑century presidents are consistently named

The indoor pool’s documented users include Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, with multiple accounts describing regular or occasional use by these presidents prior to the 1970 conversion. These names appear across historical summaries and encyclopedia-style entries that focus on White House amenities and renovations. The convergence on these four presidents as indoor‑pool users is one of the clearest, least disputed factual elements in the record supplied ^{[2] [1]}.

4. Who used the outdoor pool: Ford and several later presidents are explicitly mentioned, but lists diverge

The outdoor pool’s creation for Gerald Ford is uncontested, and several sources explicitly note that Ford used the new outdoor pool, while later presidents such as George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama are identified in some accounts as users as well. However, the supplied sources do not provide a comprehensive list of every president who has used the outdoor pool; some recent accounts cite a few post‑Ford presidents by name without claiming exhaustiveness. The variance in naming suggests reliable identification of certain users but an absence of a definitive roster in the referenced materials ^{[3] [4] [1]}.

5. What the sources omit and why that matters for a precise count

None of the provided sources offers a full, authoritative enumeration of every president who ever used either the indoor or outdoor pools; they supply snapshots and exemplars rather than exhaustive lists. Articles emphasize origin stories, architectural changes, and a handful of high‑profile user examples, leaving gaps about less publicized or private uses by others. Because the question asks “How many presidents have used the White House swimming pool?” the available evidence supports a conservative assertion that multiple presidents across successive administrations used either the indoor or outdoor pool, but it does not permit a precise numeric count without further archival or White House records beyond these accounts ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}.

6. Bottom line — what can be stated confidently and what remains uncertain

Confident facts: FDR installed an indoor pool in the 1930s; that pool was used by several mid‑century presidents and converted into the Press Briefing Room around 1970; Gerald Ford commissioned an outdoor pool in 1975 that remains the current facility. Confident identifications of users include FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ (indoor) and Ford, George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama (outdoor) in the cited accounts. Uncertain: a comprehensive, verifiable count of every president who ever used either pool is not available in the provided sources, so any exact numeral would require additional primary records or an official White House list ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}.