Hope Hicks's Former White House Office Was a "First-Floor Broom Closet"

In a startling move that created a litany of speculation, Hope Hicks officially resigned as President Trump’s White House communications director this month. Following this, an in-depth profile on Hicks and the cast of characters surrounding her departure was published by New York magazine; it also dove into the intricacies of the famously private White House staffer’s daily routines—and one thing that stood out was the details of her office. Described as a “first-floor broom closet that in the past had been assigned to presidential secretaries,” Hicks’s office was feet from the Oval Office, where Trump would frequently shout for her assistance. “‘Hope!’ he’d scream,” the New York piece reads. “‘Hopey!’ ‘Hipster!’ ‘Get in here!’”

Hicks’s office was described as “sepulchral,” meaning tomblike, and decorated minimally with three mismatched chairs and a tiny oil painting by her paternal grandmother, Lucile G. Hicks, which sat on her desk. The painting was “an abstract work that looked like the sea or the inside of a cyclone, depending on your point of view.” Hicks also kept fresh flowers in her office, which were delivered by the White House florist on a weekly basis. According to the piece, other members of the White House (who have since vacated their offices) fought to claim their own spaces during their brief tenures at the hallowed building; Omarosa Manigault reportedly stole a room that was meant for Anthony Scaramucci because of “its status-confirming glimpse of the Washington Monument.” Hicks’s office isn’t the only one to make headlines recently, however—earlier this month, reports circulated that Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke spent a head-scratching $139,000 to fix his office doors.

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