Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman originally called the Maryland presidential retreat, which opened in 1938, \u201cShangri-La\u201d after the fictional Himalayan paradise. Eisenhower, however, wanted a less formal moniker so he renamed it in 1953 in honor of his 5-year-old grandson, David. \u201cShangri-La was just a little fancy for a Kansas farm boy,\u201d he wrote in a 1953 letter to friend Edward \u201cSwede\u201d Hazlett. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who was brought by Eisenhower to the retreat, thought it sounded like a place where \u201cstray dogs were sent to die,\u201d but President John F. Kennedy and all subsequent chief executives have kept the name.<\/p>\n