A part of the LBJ Ranch near Johnson City will open to the public for the first time next week.

Until now, the only way to see the Johnson family home, known as the Texas White House, was to stay on a tour bus.

That will change Aug. 27, on what would have been the late president’s 100th birthday, when his office will open to visitors for the first time.

The room has been renovated to reflect the office the way it was when the president worked there in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Among the items on display -- LBJ’s aqua lounge chair and his glasses, which sit atop his desk as if waiting his return.

“This is the place where history took place,” said Gus Sanchez, chief of interpretation and resources management at the LBJ Historical Park. “(Many of) these are the original objects, and historical objects have power.”

Many of the items used by LBJ and his staff were preserved in a humidity- and temperature-controlled storage unit. Some of the items on display, however, such as some of the phones, are vintage but were not the actual phones used in the room.

Also opening to the public next week are an airplane hangar where Johnson held press conferences and parties, and his vehicle collection, which until next week could be viewed only through a glass wall.

Photographs of all the exhibits are allowed, but flash photography is discouraged. Visitors will not be allowed to touch the objects or sit in the cars or any of the furniture.

The Johnson family donated much of the ranch to the National Park Service in 1972, with the stipulation the family could use it as long as the president and Mrs. Johnson were alive.

After Lady Bird Johnson died last year, a $175,000 renovation began to restore the office -- which had been converted to a family room -- the way it was when LBJ worked there.