"If there had been a secretary of the interior's Guidelines [in 1840], they'd never have changed it to white in the first place," says Fishback, who guesses that change was made to save money. Little disagrees: He believes it was part of a 19th-century trend in which public buildings were painted white as a modern reference to Classical Greek marble.
Changing the color plan at this stage would probably cost all of about $8,000, Fishback says.
Halpern, too, sent a letter to the Capital. "If ever there was a timely opportunity, this is it," he wrote in July, not long before Little and his staff met, considered the matter at length, and unanimously decided on white.
