Raj Bhavan (translation: Government House) is the official residence of the governor of Sikkim. It is located in the capital city of Gangtok, Sikkim. The present governor of Sikkim is Gangaprasad. Background After the Sikkim Expedition drove Tibetan forces out of Sikkim in 1888, the British sent John Claude White as Assistant Political Officer with the expeditionary force. In 1889, he was offered the post of Political Officer of Sikkim. Although White was a Civil Engineer employed by the Public Works Department, he was so enamoured with Sikkim that he accepted the post of Political Officer unhesitatingly. White built what is today the Raj Bhavan at Gangtok. He gives a vivid account of how he personally selected the site, why it appealed to him and his travails in building it in his memoirs first published in 1909. :"One of the first things to be done on my appointment to Sikkim was to build a house, not an easy task in a wild country where masons and carpenters were conspicuous by their absence, where stone for building had to be quarried from the hillsides and trees cut down for timber. In my jungle wanderings around Gangtok, I came across a charming site in the midst of primeval forest which seemed suitable in every way, so I determined to build on it, felling only the trees which might possible endanger the safety of the house, a necessary precaution, as many of them were quite 140 feet high, and in the spring the thunderstorms, accompanied by violent winds, were something terrible and wrought havoc everywhere. By leveling the uneven ground and throwing it out in front, I managed to get sufficient space for the house, with lawn and flower beds around it. Behind rose a high mountain, thickly wooded, which protected us from the storms sweeping down from the snows to the north-east, and in front the ground fell away with a magnificent view across the valley, where, from behind the opposite hills, Kanchenjunga and its surroundings snows towered up against the clear sky, making one of the most beautiful and magnificent sights to be imagined, and one certainly not to be surpassed, if equaled, anywhere in the world." White retired in October 1908. The Residency he built was a lasting legacy he left behind. After White, all the incumbents of the post of Political Officer Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet based in Gangtok